In brief: Rivian is a new electric vehicle company, but it's already making a pretty big name for itself. The company has secured a partnership with Amazon to create a "first-of-its-kind all-electric delivery vehicle," which will be deployed in 15 US cities this year.
Amazon announced its plans to purchase roughly 100,000 electric delivery vans last year, and we'll finally see 10,000 of them hit the streets by 2022. "Tens of thousands" of additional vehicles will follow throughout 2022 and beyond, presumably until the full 100,000 have been dispatched.
You can get a glimpse of Amazon's new delivery vans through the video below. From a design perspective, there's nothing particularly special about them. They do look slightly more futuristic and sleek than other delivery vehicles out there (with a taller windshield), but that's about it – functionally, they're largely the same.
However, outlandish, stand-out vehicle designs aren't the focus for Amazon. These deployments are part of its Climate Pledge, which will see the company achieve "net-zero carbon" across all of its operations by 2040.
Amazon hasn't provided us with a list of cities that its vehicles will be arriving in, but Rivian's production HQ is located in Plymouth, Michigan, so that might be at least one safe bet.
Amazon says its new delivery vans can travel up to 150 miles on a single charge, which should be plenty for day-to-day city deliveries. Cross-state transit shipping might be a bit trickier, though, unless Amazon has charging routes planned out for its drivers.
Anyway, we look forward to seeing Amazon's new vans hit the streets over the coming months, and we hope other shipping companies follow suit sooner rather than later – the more EVs we see on the road, the better.