Plymouth Township-based electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian has received an order for 100,000 electric delivery vans from online retail giant Amazon, believed to be the largest-ever EV order.
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos made the announcement in Washington, D.C. yesterday in conjunction with his company being the first signatory of The Climate Pledge, a commitment to meet the Paris Accord 10 years early. The Paris agreement calls for companies to be net zero carbon emissions by 2050
The delivery van order, in addition to Amazon’s earlier $440 million investment in Rivian, will accelerate the production of electric vehicles critical to reducing emissions from transportation.
“We’re done being in the middle of the herd on this issue—we’ve decided to use our size and scale to make a difference,” says Bezos. “If a company with as much physical infrastructure as Amazon—which delivers more than 10 billion items a year—can meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early, then any company can. Large companies signing The Climate Pledge will send an important signal to the market that it’s time to invest in the products and services the signatories will need to meet their commitments.”
Amazon says it expects the Rivian vans to begin making deliveries to customers in 2021. Plans call for 10,000 of the new EVs to be on the road by 2022 and all 100,000 to be in operation by 2030. Bezos says the move will save 4 million metric tons of carbon per year by 2030.
In April, Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn announced an equity investment of $500 million in Rivian. In addition, the companies have agreed to work together to develop an all-new, next-generation battery electric vehicle for Ford’s EV portfolio using Rivian’s skateboard platform.
Ford intends to develop a new vehicle using Rivian’s flexible skateboard platform. This is in addition to Ford’s existing plans to develop a portfolio of battery electric vehicles. As part of its previously announced $11 billion EV investment, Ford already has confirmed two key fully electric vehicles: a Mustang-inspired crossover coming in 2020 and a zero-emissions version of the F-150 pickup.
