Amazon-Rivian EDV: a delivery van built from scratch, the largest EV order ever

When Amazon committed to electrifying its last-mile fleet, it did not convert stock vans. In 2019 it ordered 100,000 custom electric delivery vans from Rivian — reported as the largest electric vehicle order ever — co-designing a vehicle from scratch around delivery routes. From 2021 Amazon tested deliveries with preproduction EDVs, and Rivian secured certifications from NHTSA, the California Air Resources Board and the EPA, letting the vans prove themselves in different climates and geographies.

On 21 July 2022 the custom vans officially hit the road in more than a dozen US cities, including Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, Baltimore, San Diego and Nashville. By then the testing phase had already delivered more than 430,000 packages over 90,000 miles. Amazon said the vans would reach more than 100 cities by the end of 2022, with the full 100,000 vehicles on US roads by 2030. 'Rivian has been an excellent partner in that mission, and we're excited to see our first custom electric delivery vehicles on the road,' said CEO Andy Jassy.

The case is also a lesson in supplier risk. In March 2022 Rivian cut its own production forecast in half to 25,000 vehicles amid supply chain constraints, and its stock traded below its IPO price; by July it had delivered only a few hundred EDVs to Amazon, with thousands expected by year's end. A single-supplier custom platform meant Amazon's decarbonisation timeline rode on one young manufacturer's ramp.

Commission the vehicle, don't convert one

A purpose-built van puts the delivery route's economics into the chassis itself instead of retrofitting a consumer vehicle.

A scale order moves supplier economics: 100,000 units financed a brand-new commercial platform no buyer would risk alone.

Preproduction testing run as real operations — 430,000 packages, 90,000 miles, multiple climates — surfaced failure modes a small pilot would miss.

Certifying across regulators and geographies before rollout meant the fleet could scale without re-validation at every step.

Buy innovation at scale by testing it as operations, not a pilot: real routes on the real product first. Amazon's 100,000-van order was de-risked by 430,000 preproduction deliveries.

Amazon and Rivian pressed ahead with the 100-city expansion announced for end of 2022, while Rivian's production strain — the halved 2022 forecast, a stock below IPO price — kept the pace of EDV deliveries under scrutiny as the test of both companies' promises.