Add Detroit to the cities the place Amazon is testing its new battery-powered electrical supply van designed and constructed by Rivian.
Final week in Royal Oak, a suburb north of the Detroit metropolis limits, an Amazon driver in a hand-built Rivian van, accompanied by a Rivian engineer, was delivering packages. It is certainly one of three vans presently being examined within the Detroit space.
Amazon plans to check the vans in 16 cities forward of the official rollout, which begins subsequent yr with a manufacturing run of 10,000 autos. The vans have been noticed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Tulsa, Okla.
The Rivian engineer accompanying the Amazon driver stated the vans present process testing within the Detroit space have been assembled at Rivian’s Plymouth, Mich., engineering and design heart. The van appeared manufacturing prepared, with no apparent prototype or unfinished components.
Amazon has invested greater than $700 million in Rivian and plans to buy 100,000 electrical vans from the corporate by 2030.
Whereas van deliveries look like on schedule, Rivian’s R1T electrical pickup is late, irritating clients who anticipated them to reach late final yr. The most recent information from Rivian is that the primary R1Ts will arrive in September.