Anyone with a commercial fleet will soon be able to buy Rivian’s electric vans, the automaker said Monday.
Rivian (RIVN-2.50%) had been in an exclusive van sales partnership with Amazon (AMZN-4.05%), which promised to buy 100,000 of the plug-in vehicles. That partnership ended in late 2023, and Rivian said it is now ready to sell its vans to other commercial businesses.
“Rivian has been trialing its commercial van with several large fleets in the U.S., and preparing its fleet management process for the mass market,” the company said, according to Reuters. “These pilots have paved the way to enable Rivian to open sales further.”
The automaker known for its electric trucks sold 20,000 vans so far to Amazon and plans to deliver 80,000 more by 2030. It is also partnering with AT&T (T+0.37%), although its unclear how many vans the wireless carrier bought.
“Over the last year we have been focusing our efforts on testing with some larger fleets, and we’re really pleased with how those trials have gone,” Tom Solomon, senior director of business development at Rivian, said, according to The Verge. “As a result, we’re excited to now be able to open sales to fleets of all sizes in the US, whether they want one van or thousands.”
Rivian has two van models, the RCV 500 and the RCV 700, which respectively sell for $79,900 and $83,900.
Last year, it had to pause making the vans because of a parts shortage, which has since been resolved.
Van sales can hopefully help Rivian on its path to financial stability, in part because the vehicles have higher profit margins than its pickup trucks.
After a tough second quarter, Rivian stock soared in January after it managed to surpass analysts’ expectations for fourth-quarter deliveries and dismiss production constraints.
The electric truck and SUV company said it delivered 14,183 vehicles between October and December, beating estimates of about 13,500 sales. That brought the company’s full-year deliveries to 51,579, greater than the 50,122 vehicles delivered a year earlier and squarely within Rivian’s forecast.
—William Gavin contributed to this article.
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