Rivian said on Wednesday it has delivered 70 units of its fully electric commercial vans to HelloFresh, a global meal kit provider, as it aims to continue expanding the number of fleet customers.
HelloFresh is the “first major fleet customer” since the brand announced it opened orders to other customers last February, with prices starting at $79,000. Until then, the California-based EV maker had only delivered its vans to Amazon, its largest shareholder, which backs the company’s project since 2019.
The brand revealed in a statement that “HelloFresh has incorporated 70 all-electric commercial vans into its fleet,” having “saved an estimated 20,000 gallons of gasoline” and driven “more than 250,000 miles since the partnership began”.
Tom Solomon, Rivian‘s VP for B2B Growth and Business Development, said that the “Commercial Van is engineered to be one of the safest commercial vehicles on the road”.
Earlier this year, Reddit users sighted Rivian‘s commercial vans with HelloFresh/Factor branding in Utah and Chicago, suggesting that a partnership would be in preparation or already signed.
HelloFresh’s VP of U.S. Logistics and Health Nunzio Di Savino stated that “by adding the Rivian Commercial Van into our fleet, not only have we cut our CO2 emissions, but we also play our role in helping to clean the air in the cities in which we operate.”
The meal prep delivery service’s “last mile delivery network optimizes driving routes to decrease the distance traveled from distribution center to doorstep”, with its “transit hubs are close to major city centers in 14 markets,” the company stressed.
Amazon Partnership
As part of its ‘The Climate Pledge’ initiative, Amazon partnered with Rivian in 2019 to roll out 100,000 electric delivery vans by 2030, with testing of preproduction vehicles beginning in 2021.
In late 2024, Amazon planned to deploy 1,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian, equipped with vision-assisted package retrieval. As of the latest update in early February, Amazon counted with over 20,000 units in its fleet.
Earlier this month, TechCrunch reported that Amazon’s founder and executive chair Jeff Bezos is backing Slate Auto, a Michigan EV startup planning to build a $25,000 two-seat electric pickup.
Tariffs Impact
On Tuesday, Rivian‘s founder and CEO RJ Scaringe commented on the potential impact of global trade tensions between the United States and China on the company’s production.
In an interview with Fox Business, Scaringe said that despite Rivian’s “very United States-centric supply chain,” every EV model will face “a real challenge.”
He noted that the brand does rely “on a supply chain that has a number of components that come from other countries,” and added that “given the new environment from a tariff point of view, we’re working really hard to see what we can change.”
In the first quarter, the EV maker delivered 8,640 units and produced 14,611 —slightly above its own guidance. While deliveries dropped 36% compared to last year, production rose by 4.5%. The brand reaffirmed its 2025 goal of delivering between 46,000 and 51,000 vehicles.
