Rivian delivers first Amazon buses and wants more company cars

Say ‘Rivian’ and you immediately think of that hip R1T pickup and its SUV brother R1S. However, Rivian is making a third model, an electric van specially designed for e-commerce giant Amazon. We already got to see that vehicle in 2019, but logically there is a lot of time between a first virtual introduction and actual deployability. However, we have arrived at the latter.

Amazon reports that US customers could now encounter a Rivian bus on their street. That should very soon become the most normal thing in the world, because from now on things are going fast. Amazon aims to have ‘thousands’ of these buses in more than 100 different cities before the end of this year. By 2030, 100,000 Rivian buses with Amazon features should be on the road in the US.

Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Nashville, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle and St. Louis are among the first cities to be introduced to this unique vehicle. As a reminder: the Amazon bus was developed and tested entirely in consultation with Amazon and its drivers. Attention has been paid to matters such as all-round visibility, easy entry, handy doors and, of course, the best possible layout. To see it is really an Amazon bus, not a Rivian. For example, the Amazon logo appears as a brand logo on the nose and handlebars and the Amazon ‘smile’ is even incorporated into the headlights. Charging is done at Amazon’s distribution centers across the country. It is not yet known whether there are plans to deploy the buses outside the US.

We don’t have detailed specifications yet, and we probably won’t either. After all, Rivian has no reason to offer these buses elsewhere, as Amazon is the preferred partner for this project. However, leaked information on Twitter shows that there are three lengths, referred to as EDV 500, EDV 700 and EDV 900. The shortest is about 6 meters 30 long, the longest no less than 8 meters 15. The driving range is at the shorter copies at about 240 km, the longest is logically less far.

Image: Reilly Brennan

More buses

More or less at the same time, Reuters comes with the news that Rivian is indeed working on orders for other parties. This naturally involves new, unique models, whether or not in collaboration with other major partners. That doesn’t seem crazy. While the passenger car market is now full of hip, innovative newcomers, this does not yet apply to commercial vehicles. Electric buses now often come from traditional brands and in the vast majority of cases are also based on existing models with an internal combustion engine.