One and a half years after Amazon announced it would buy 100,000 electric trucks to reduce its carbon footprint, Amazon says it has started using prototype vehicles for actual deliveries in Los Angeles. Amazon expects to spend a few more months testing the vehicles before mass production begins later this year.
Amazon placed the massive order with Rivian, a company that raised billions of dollars to build electric trucks. Amazon is a Rivian investor.
Rivian has designed a “skateboard” platform for electric trucks that can be used to build a wide variety of vehicles. Rivian plans to start delivering its flagship pickup, the R1T, and the R1S SUV later this year.
Delivery trucks “Last-mile” is a good application for electric vehicles, because trucks tend to drive relatively short distances with a lot of stopping and starting. Amazon says that the new Rivian delivery trucks have a distance of 150 kilometers. Amazon says it’s getting its buildings ready to accommodate the new fleet of vehicles and installing thousands of electric vehicle charging stations at their delivery stations in North America and Europe.
The purchase of electric trucks is part of Amazon’s overall project to achieve net carbon emissions by 2040. Amazon aims to use 80 percent renewable energy by 2024 and 100 percent by 2030. The company wants 10,000 electric delivery trucks next year. In 2019, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said he hopes to have 100,000 Rivian vehicles on the roads by 2024.
Because electric motors are so quiet, regulations require electric vehicles to make an artificial sound when traveling at low speeds. People who have seen Amazon’s new trucks in the wild report that they make a futuristic sound that is loud and annoying – although this may change with future versions of the vehicle.