Friendly face
Not entirely unexpectedly, Rivian is also marketing its electric van, which was specially developed for online store giant Amazon, for other companies. In this form, the bus is simply called Amazon Commercial Van and is available in several variants.
It has been in the air for some time that Rivian’s ‘Amazon bus’ would also become available to other parties. However, the American EV manufacturer Rivian is now making this official and is putting the ‘Rivian Commercial Van’ on the price list for business ‘fleet sales’. The regular version differs from the Amazon version in a number of ways. For starters, it is not presented in Amazon blue, but in white. All Amazon badges around will also make way for the Rivian brand name. That is important, because on the Amazon version it is almost impossible to see that this is a Rivian product. Finally, the buyer of the Commercial Van is of course completely free to choose the layout, while Amazon came up with its own handy layout for the parcel deliverers.
The Rivian Commercial Van is currently available in two variants. The Delivery 500 is 6.31 meters long, the Delivery 700 extends over no less than 7.06 meters. This also means more, but at the expense of maneuverability and (somewhat) driving range. That is 259 km for the 500 and 246 km for the 700. With this limited driving range, it is clear that the non-Amazon versions of the bus are also mainly intended for local parcel delivery. In that context, this story deserves an explanation that the American market for vans is much more limited than ours. Many tasks that are performed by all kinds of vans in Europe are in the hands of pickups and similar vehicles in the US. The national postal service has its own bus and a handful of European buses are imported, such as the Ram Promaster (Fiat Ducato) and the Mercedes Metris (Vito) and Sprinter. Ford also carries the Transit, which is well-known in Europe. The only truly American bus – until the arrival of the Rivian – is actually the Chevrolet Express, a van that has been in production virtually unchanged for many decades.
For those who missed it: this electric delivery van was specially developed for and with Amazon, which was therefore given plenty of room to think up what the ideal delivery van should look like. An ideal entry, easy passage to the cargo hold, handy layout and a lot of overview are part of that package.
Although there are no plans yet to offer the Rivian Commercial Van in Europe, the bus seems quite suitable for the tight Dutch streets. Due to the always electric powertrain, the Rivian offers a lot of cargo space in relation to its length, because the nose is short. The friendly appearance of the front soothes the pain when such a bus rushes through your neighborhood at full throttle again and the large windshield, extended far down, reduces the chance of children or pets being overlooked. The only possible stumbling block – on paper at least – is the width: including mirrors, the Rivian measures 2.62 meters, which is quite large even compared to a Sprinter.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl