Amazon's growing U.S. fleet now includes some 5,000 Rivian electric delivery vans, meeting the needs of its e-commerce customers and helping the company achieve its promise of creating a more sustainable private fleet.
"This is just the start of what will be 100,000 vehicles on the road by 2030, at which time Amazon will eliminate millions of metric tons of carbon per year," a spokesperson for the e-commerce giant told FleetOwner in a statement.
Rivian was one of the first OEMs to benefit from Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund, a venture investment program with an initial $2 billion in funding, supporting the development of sustainable technologies with a goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
"We worked together on everything from designing the size and space of the interior to what the headlights look like, and even the sound the vehicles make when they're on the road," Amazon representative Katie Larsen told FleetOwner.
The Rivian vans were built with a focus on driver safety and experience, according to Larsen. They were tested by company drivers, who influenced the design of the 100,000 vans the company ordered.
Amazon, the nation's sixth-largest private fleet, according to the FleetOwner 500: Top Private Fleets of 2023 rankings, has worked closely with charging network operators, utilities, and energy companies.
Amazon has put about 15 different models of electric vehicles on the road, including custom delivery vehicles, e-cargo bikes, and e-rickshaws, to test and learn across the U.S., the EU, and India.
Last autumn, the company announced plans to invest over 1 billion euro over the next five years to further electrify and decarbonize its transportation network across Europe. As of last week, customers in the Munich, Berlin, and Dusseldorf regions will start to see Rivian vans on the road, including more than 1,000 electric vans in Germany.
"Amazon adds 5,000th Rivian electric delivery van to U.S. fleet" originally appeared on FleetOwner.com, an Endeavor Business Media partner site.
