After the massive $2.5 billion raised by the company just 2 weeks back, Rivian has finally announced that it will start the delivery of its all electric pickup trucks by summer 2021, becoming the first company globally to launch electric vehicles in the extensively lucrative commercial vehicles segment.
The only real competitor to Tesla in the electric automobile game, Rivian had been on the roadmap to become the progenitor of this new vehicle segment by 2020. But alas, the launch of its R1T and R1S pickup trucks was pushed back by the coronavirus pandemic. Up until now, we had no idea how much of a pushback Rivian might be looking at. However, all doubts were cleared today, when the company said in an email to prospective clients that the R1T truck will become available for deliveries in June 2021, while the R1S will arrive shortly after, in August 2021.
The company will now start a pilot production line in its facility at Normal, Illinois to meet its goal of delivering the vehicles by summer next year. Speaking of the Rivian facility, coronavirus caused a halt in a construction project that aimed to convert the former Mitsubishi plant to an ‘electric pickup production center’. It was due to this reason that the company had to push back deliveries to 2021. However, now that the facility has finally began operations, Rivian should be able to fulfill its word.
If the company achieves this landmark, it would put it years ahead of its competition, as no other electric vehicle company has any pickup trucks planned, and the one that has, i.e. Tesla, might be looking at a 2022 launch. In fact, it was just yesterday that Elon Musk announced that the Cybertruck will be built at the company’s second U.S. facility in Austin Texas. The announcement was made in an earnings call, and puts Tesla far behind Rivian, which has already started production of its vehicles.
The company had recently raised $2.5 billion in a round led by T. Rowe Price Associates, which it planned to invest in the production lines of R1T and R1S.
This edge that Rivian has over its competition has won it the support of Amazon, which has placed a pre order of 100,000 vans for delivery purposes. The vehicles will be rolled out as part of Amazon’s delivery fleet over a course of 10 years, with the company expecting to get the first 10,000 by 2022.
