Rivian Automotive Inc. will expand deliveries of a battery-electric van it makes for Amazon.Com Inc. to Europe. It will be the EV maker’s first commercial shipments outside the US.
The company will roll out more than 300 plug-in delivery vans in the coming weeks across German cities, including Munich, Berlin and Dusseldorf, Rivian said in a statement Monday. Amazon, Rivian’s largest shareholder and biggest customer, has an order for 100,000 vans to be delivered by the end of the decade.
Rivian has deployed around 3,000 last-mile electric vans to Amazon in cities across the US, the company said in the statement. It had initially agreed to deliver 10,000 vans to Amazon by the end of last year, a target it missed.
Irvine, California-based Rivian is a leader in the large pack of American EV startups chasing Tesla Inc. In addition to its delivery vans, it makes two consumer vehicles — the R1T battery-electric pick-up and R1S sport utility vehicle — at its sole production facility in Normal, Illinois.
It will export the Electric Delivery Vans, or EDVs, from its Illinois plant to Europe, the company said. In December, Rivian had previously shelved a plan to jointly build electric vans locally in Europe with Mercedes-Benz Group AG.
Read More: Rivian Surges After Quarterly Production Beats Expectations
The company has turned a corner on production after a stop-start 2022 that saw its shares plummet. Amazon, along with backers like T. Rowe Price Group Inc., propelled Rivian’s 2021 listing to be the sixth biggest in US history. On Monday, Rivian reported production for the second quarter that beat expectations.
