Amazon has announced a new milestone involving its Rivian-built Electric Delivery Vehicle (EDV): it now has more than 10,000 of them on the road, which means the fleet has doubled in size compared to four months ago.
This seems to indicate that production of the EDV at Rivian's plant in Normal, Illinois, has picked up in recent months; Amazon announced the previous milestone of 5,000 EDVs on US roads in July 2023. It took a year for Amazon to take delivery of the first 5,000 Rivian EDVs – from July 2022 when it rolled out the first vans in its electric delivery fleet to July 2023.
Rivian does not break down vehicle production by model, but in the third quarter of 2023 it has manufactured a record 16,304 battery-electric vehicles – R1S, R1T, and EDV combined – at its Illinois factory.
Taking delivery of 10,000 EDVs also means that Amazon has added to its fleet 10 percent of the 100,000 Rivian vans it has pledged to buy in 2019 and put on the road by 2030. Mind you, Rivian missed the initial target to have the first 10,000 electric vans delivered to Amazon by 2022.
Amazon said it would continue to drive the fastest rollout of an electric delivery fleet in the United States, offering some interesting statistics regarding the Rivian EDV at its Delivering the Future event on October 17.
Gallery: Amazon Electric Delivery Vehicle
For example, since hitting the road in July 2022, Amazon's electric delivery vans have delivered more than 260 million packages to customers in over 1,800 cities across the US.
Rivian EDVs are now delivering packages in cities including Alpharetta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Grand Rapids, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Madison, Miami, Nashville, New York, Newark, Oakland, Omaha, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Provo, Rochester, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Jose, Santa Rosa, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa and Toledo.
The company is also rolling out vans in Anaheim, Green Bay, Lexington, and Silver Spring.
With such a fast-growing fleet, Amazon is also working to upgrade its charging infrastructure. The company said it has installed more than 12,000 chargers in more than 100 delivery stations.
The e-commerce giant is electrifying its delivery fleet worldwide, not just in the United States. In Germany, for example, the company started adding Rivian EDV 500 vans to its fleet in July 2023.
By 2030, Amazon estimates its fleet of 100,000 electric vans will enable it to save millions of metric tons of carbon per year.
Source: Amazon