The Rivian Electric Amazon Delivery Van Is Highly Innovative and Incredibly Cool

this is a delivery van that sounds boring but this certainly isn't boring that's because this is the rivian edv which stands for electric delivery van this is a fully electric delivery van that rivien has created just for Amazon to deliver packages this thing is very interesting and today I'm going to review it and show you all of its many quirks and features before I get started be sure to check out cars and bids which is my Enthusiast car auction website for cool cars from the modern era with free listings you can list your cool car for free and auction it on cars and bids and we've had some great sales recently including this Dodge Viper rt10 which sold for over forty one thousand dollars this fantastic Tesla Model X plaid which sold for 117 thousand dollars and this lovely Toyota Century with a V12 that sold for over twenty two thousand dollars we love the weird stuff on cars and bids if you're looking to buy or sell a cool Enthusiast car from the modern era cars and bids is the place to do it with daily auctions and free listings check it out at carsandbids.com all right time for the quirks and features of the rivian Amazon electric van but first let me give you a little overview of exactly what this is okay so Rivia makes electric vehicles the r1s electric SUV and the r1t electric truck to my very favorite electric vehicles I've done reviews of them they've gotten millions of views go watch Amazon sends you packages and does a lot of other things you know Amazon Amazon is an investor in rivian and Amazon has a corporate goal of switching to 100 renewable energy within the next few years you can see where this is going Amazon calls up their partners rivian and says hey can you build us an electric delivery van so rivian says yeah sure and so they created this the edv literally electric delivery van now this rides on the same platform and uses the same architecture as the r1s and r1t and it's built in the same Factory in Illinois it's just a little bit longer and it has obviously a completely different body and it's front wheel drive the r1s and R12 are four wheel drive this is front-wheel drive although since it's all the same architecture theoretically an all-wheel drive version could be made should Amazon request it okay so with that out of the way let's go through the many quirks and features and keep in mind one of the interesting things about this van is that rivien builds it only for Amazon that's their only customer so it's tremendously purpose built which means it has a lot of stuff that you might not think of but that greatly enhance the lives of Amazon package delivery people all sorts of interesting quirks and features let's start with the key which well for one thing it has the Amazon smile on it instead of a rivian logo which makes sense Amazon is the only customer so they can put their branding on it but the other interesting thing you'll notice with this key is there's no Loop to hook it onto a key ring then again why should there be Amazon package delivery people aren't going to stick it onto their key ring instead it has a little clip so you can stick it on to clothing the theory here is Amazon employees will stick it onto a shirt pocket in their Amazon uniform and then you can see the lock-in unlock buttons are at the top of the key fob that way if they want to walk away and lock the truck they don't have to get the key out of their pocket it's at their shirt pocket and the buttons are pointing up at them just tap them and it locks or unlocks which is a pretty cool and efficient idea next up let's talk doors this van has four doors and they are all completely different from one another this is of course the driver's door to open it you stick your hand in this little opening you press on a little rubber button and then it opens up interestingly this is the least important door in the entire van the driver's door to get into the driver's seat is the least important door the most important door in this van is this one what you or I would call the passenger door in this van you open it there's a handle up front you pull on it and then it slides open it's a sliding door like in a minivan and from there you could just climb inside or technically you step inside I say technically because that's actually a government classification for regulatory purposes this is a step in Van you just step right in now this is the most important door in the van because package delivery drivers are in and out of this door constantly the driver's side door they only get in when they're starting their shift and get out at the end of their shift but this door they pull up to a house or a business on the sidewalk or the curbside and they get out and in this door to deliver packages all day long upwards of a hundred times a day sometimes now when you open up this door you instantly start to see a few interesting quirks and features worth pointing out one of them is Amazon's distinctive bright blue color which was placed strategically in little spots throughout the interior look through there and you can see that color throughout again this van is only sold to Amazon so you might as well customize it with Amazon's colors and keep it on brand since they're going to be the only ones using this vehicle you even have some of that bright blue Amazon color in the floor material little Speckles of it are sprinkled into the rest of the floor to give it kind of an extra amazony touch just a little one very subtle and kind of cool now a couple other things worth noting from this view for one you can see two blue panels on the steps to get inside those are a specific sticky material intended to keep drivers from slipping the benefit of this is obvious in Northern climates icy days it makes it easier to climb in the van safely without your shoes slipping when you're getting in and out so many times per day the other interesting thing here is you will note this van has only two steps rivien told me that when they first developed these Vans they had three steps but as they spent time with delivery drivers seeing how they actually used it they noticed that most drivers would just jump in step and then climb on in they were inside they didn't need three steps and in fact have having the third step actually slowed them down every time getting in and out of the van it was a couple of tenths of a second lost may not seem like much but tenths of seconds adds up to minutes adds up to hours over time and so they eliminated the third step and went with just two to save that little bit of efficiency it seems small but it matters and speaking of efficiency that brings us to the next door which is maybe the most interesting door in this entire van and that would be the one that leads from this front compartment where the driver sits into the cargo area where the packages are ask any delivery driver and they'll tell you they're constantly between the driver's seat and the cargo area back and forth and so having a door to go directly there is a pretty nice thing but this door is especially nice because it opens automatically when you put this van in park the door automatically opens up so you put it in park go deliver packages and then you can just easily walk right back into the cargo area and you don't even have to open the door again a little efficiency opening the door doesn't take that long but if it opens automatically it saves you tenths of a second here and there and that adds up and it's the same deal when you want to drive away you put the van in drive and the door automatically closes you don't have to do any of it and so it saves you just a little bit of extra time that door opening automatically to get into the cargo area pretty cool idea but anyway when it comes to the quirks and features of this van there is so much more to discuss than just this stuff let's start with the fact that there's only one seat this giant van and there's only one seat for the driver and that's it although when you think about it it actually makes sense these Vans are really only going to be used by the driver the rest of the space should be taken up by cargo that's the whole point you only need one seat except you actually do have two seats the other one is a jump seat it's positioned up against this wall until you need it and when you do you can lower the bottom portion and then you have an extra seat it has its own seat belt it even has its own cup holder but rivian tells me it's not going to be used all that often pretty much only when you have an Amazon driver in training who's like shadowing one who's sitting in the main seat to learn the ropes of the job they'll sit in this seat until they have it all figured out otherwise this is just a single Cedar giant van and next up another notable feature of this van an enormous amount of grab handles to make it easier to get in and out you can see one here finished in Amazon bright blue to make it easier to climb up the steps and then above that you have another one to help you get in and out you also have a giant grab handle here on the dashboard which you can grab onto for whatever reason you might need to grab handles everywhere in this van and on the subject of ease of getting in and out another major component of that is the position of the driver seat you can see it's mounted pretty high up on the floor and that is to allow drivers to easily just swing their legs over and get out of the van or swing their legs over and go into the cargo area and instead of setting lows or drivers have to climb over something some big hump in the middle twist in some weird way this seat is perfectly positioned so the drivers can just swivel to the side and then climb out the van or climb into the back to go look for packages it's made as easy as possible now when you go and sit in that driver's seat the first thing you notice is that looking out you have an unbelievable field of view an incredibly massive windshield that allows you to see everything in front of you pretty much it really has a huge view compared to what you'd get in a car or basically any other vehicle and Beyond just sheer size a couple of interesting benefits about the windshield for one you can see directly in front of you this van doesn't have much front end in front of the windshield as you can see so when you're sitting in the driver's seat there's no like guesswork about where your position you can see directly the front of the van so a dog a child comes out in front of you you can see exactly where they're positioned which is nice also also worth pointing out that this windshield is heated if you look closely you can see heating coils running through it this is a really cool feature for people in cold climates with ice on the windshield instead of sitting there waiting for this massive windshield to defrost you press the button the coils turn on and the ice is cleared very quickly which is nice then speaking of clearing this windshield the wipers are kind of interesting as you might expect huge windshield weird wipers here's how they operate you can see they're sort of on top of each other and they take turns wiping their side of the windshield and it's just kind of funny to watch these wipers but that's the kind of thing you have to do when you have sort of an oddly shaped windshield like this one now and another interesting step you got to take inside the car when you have a windshield like this is you have to have massive sun visors to accommodate it and so this van does because the sun visors are absolutely huge and you can lower them even further there's like a visor extender panel in case you need even more sunblocked you've got that capability here and another interesting windshield item if you look at the base of the windshield you can see sensors these are the sensors for like forward Collision warning radar cruise control automatic wipers they're positioned at the bottom of the windshield where in most cars they're at the top the reason for that is number one putting them at the top of the windshield they're just too high they won't actually see stuff that they need to see but also rivian told me these have to be behind a wiped surface something that the wipers will actually cover and so they had to go into a place that would be within the path of the windshield wipers and so they're there Ruby and also told me they experimented with having a third tiny windshield wiper just for the sensors at the top of the windshield but that didn't really make sense so they put them in the bottom now it's worth putting out that unfortunately I'm not going to be able to actually see out this large windshield today I'm not going to be able to drive the rivian Amazon van I can only show you its quirks and features I'm sure rivian and Amazon have many great reasons for that including liability and they don't want me driving like an idiot but I can't drive it I can only show you around it but that's not so bad there is still oh so much more to show let's move on to the steering wheel where in the center you have the Amazon logo not rivian not just a blank the Amazon logo again another example of this car is only being sold to Amazon so why not include their branding throughout in fact the rivian logo only appears in two places on this van on the passenger side of the dashboard you can see it says powered by rivian and on the outside sort of low on the side of the van you can see the same text there but pretty subtle it doesn't really brag or tell you that it's a rivian van except in those places instead they just decided to primarily stick to Amazon branding more on branding a little bit later when I get outside the van and show you some other Amazon logos but before I get there a few other interesting Crooks and features in this front compartment for one thing there is a cup holder to the left of the steering wheel so in very easy reach of the driver you got a cup holder right there so drivers can take sips while they drive you also have more cup holders behind the front seat actually huge cup holders back here and a pretty decent storage area for like the driver's personal stuff if they have like a lunch or a coat they can put it back there and they got space for it in this van next up another feature I love in this van the hazard light button which is both huge and right next to the steering wheel because drivers of these Vans are often putting on their hazard lights when they stop on the street they put them on and then they jump out of the van so you want that to be really accessible and not hidden like it is in some cars and next up here's an interesting Quirk the climate control in this van is pretty much entirely focused at the driver the only interior climate vents are these too directly next to the gauge cluster focused right at the driver you have no vents over on the passenger side and you also have a climate control system integrated into the driver's seat not just like a ventilated seat but an actual fan with a blower that can help keep drivers cool rivian told me the main reason for this was efficiency you don't really need to heat or cool this entire cabin which is actually a pretty large space you only really need to keep the driver hot or cool and adding extra climate vents all throughout the van is just going to make it less efficient for an electric vehicle that's a big deal so they decided to focus it just at the driver now it is worth pointing out you do have a separate fan for the cargo area there's a fan up here in the ceiling in the cargo area as you can see and you turn it on in the infotainment screen you can tap on this and that will turn on the fan circulate some air so if this driver is delivering chocolates or something else that might melt well you can make sure it doesn't get too hot in the back but let's talk about that infotainment system for a second because it's very interesting and also very purpose Built For This vehicle this isn't just the standard rivian infotainment system even though it's just the standard rivian screen it's been totally adapted for the purposes of this van starting with this little icon along the bottom that opens or closes the door to get into the package area so just in case you're driving but you want it open or you're in park you want it closed for whatever reason you can open it with the push of that button and it instantly pops open as you can see so it's not only linked to the Gear you're in you have a separate override now also along the bottom here you have a little tab that looks like this van and you tap on it and there are quite a few controls for various items in the van like for instance you can turn on your cargo lights in here to light up your cargo area so you can see while you're sorting packages you can also turn on your interior light in here if you like need to read something and you can control your mirrors in this screen as well so basic various van controls in this tab now also along the bottom here you have a little icon that looks like it would lead to a navigation system but you tap on that and actually it brings up a QR code and this is for Amazon drivers to scan they scan this and it loads the route that they should be taking that day based on where all their packages have to be delivered obviously they calculate the route based on the most efficient Drive possible and that route loads on the screen and so this car doesn't have like rivian's own navigation system but rather a handheld one that comes integrated into the vehicle that drivers can interface with as they drop off their packages and next up another interesting icon along the bottom of this screen is a heated seat control but just one but that's all you need you have a heated seat you only need one heated seat rare you'll see that in a vehicle not front heated seats but front heated seat also along the bottom here you have controls for your radio you can access it here but there actually is no radio rivienne spent an enormous amount of time with Amazon drivers When developing this vehicle to figure out what they did and didn't use and how they operated and they discovered most drivers just play Bluetooth music from their device and so a radio was taken out decided there was no point in spending the money to include it since most drivers didn't use it anyway so you have Bluetooth audio but no AM FM radio in this van and speaking of devices there are a few places you can charge under the center screen this pad here is a wireless charging pad so just stick your device there and it'll charge but also in this area you have two USB ports A and C so you can charge with whatever cord you have now also interesting in this interior outside the infotainment system is an SOS button which is located here and it can't tax Emergency Services instantly which is a great idea if something's happening if you're having a medical issue if you see an accident you can tap that button and contact 9-1-1 very easily without having to pull out a phone and dial it nice to have that there on the other side of the steering wheel you also have a camera button you press that and you can pull up a full camera angle showing all around the vehicle to help you Aid in parking or tight spaces or whatever and just let you see where you're going nice to have that so easy Within Reach but anyway next up time to climb out of the car through the driver's side door and to get out it's an electronic popper you press this button the door pops and then you push it open from there there is also a manual release as you can see a lever just in case the electronic popper fails you can pull that and get out as a backup now one interesting thing about this door it has a window that rolls down of course but then it has a second window above that window which is odd I asked the rivian people about this they told me it's there for two reasons number one to increase visibility in a vehicle like this there's no such thing as too much visibility but the other reason is the space that the door occupies needed to be identical in size and shape to the space on the other side that the door occupies because rivian plans to offer a right hand drive version of this van for Amazon in Europe Australia South Africa wherever and so to make sure that they didn't have to make two different shells and doors and door openings they have the same door opening on both sides pretty interesting now on the subject of visibility one interesting thing about this van is it has no interior rear view mirror mounted on the windshield like a lot of cars there isn't one which I guess makes sense because there's no rear window a lot of cargo vans don't have a mirror there the benefit is this van has an enormous amount of cameras that can help you see pretty much all around at any given time not really a problem and this van also has an enormous amount of safety features you wouldn't really expect in a cargo van in fact it has pretty much the same stuff as a rivian SUV or truck which means Lane departure warning and Lane keep assist automatic forward Collision braking you even have driver assist meaning the van will steer brake accelerate for you just like some of the very best most technologically advanced vehicles on the market well now it's in a package delivery van and next up we move into the cargo area in the rivian van where you'll discover that this part of the van is less cool interesting quirky and more just well van actually although there still are a few interesting items worth noting back here for one thing I can stand up which is pretty cool rivian told me that they made this compartment stand upable for the 95th percentile of humans so most people will be able to stand up back here no problem which is really nice you don't have to constantly be leaning over or bending over when you're reaching into this van you can just walk through it like it's a room now the other cool thing about this cargo area is the shelving units which are specifically designed for Amazon Amazon package delivery drivers use something called totes which are like giant bags that carry all of the packages and these shelves were perfectly sized to carry those totes and that means that Amazon doesn't have to buy a van from another competitor and then go and outfit it with shelves that perfectly fit their totes because this fan is designed for their totes it comes like this from the factory just plug and play get in and start package delivering now a couple of other interesting things in here for one thing the floor and the central part where people walk it's rubber which helps keep you from slipping just like those sticky pads on the steps that I showed you earlier also interesting is the shelves at the back of the cargo area can lift up as you can see they can fold up that's for taller packages so if you're delivering some tall packages you don't have a place for them lift those up and you can stick them right there you will also see that the dolly has a specific spot back there in case you need it to deliver packages you know where it lives and maybe the most interesting thing in this back area is the final door in this van which is actually a garage door you can see the garage door tracks like you might have in your garage at home they're in this van and to open the garage door from the inside you press this little button over on the side of the door it pops open and then you can lift it up from there the rest of the way and then you can climb out same deal from the outside you have a little button over to the side as you can see press that the door pops open and then you lift up the garage door the rest of the way now the cool thing about this garage door is you don't have to worry about it swinging out and hitting something behind you or swinging open on the side and having something next to you because the garage door can open up within the van so opening the door doesn't add to your footprint at all and it helps improve package delivery capabilities and you might be wondering what happens if someone tries to drive off with the garage door open the answer is you get a massive warning in the gauge cluster reminding you that it's open and telling you to go close it right away you can drive with it open and there are some situations where it may make sense to do that but it's really annoying to do it so you'll pretty much want it closed all the time and next up since I'm moving outside the van let's come out here and talk about design and styling of this van because there are some very interesting things to mention on the outside we'll start here in back where one of the first things you'll notice is a tail light that goes up and over the top of the van spanning basically half of the rear the entire sides the top it is very distinctive Vivian told me as you might guess visibility was a major goal here people are stopping in these Vans getting out delivering packages they don't want them to get hit and so you have this massive tail light to make the Vans more visible the brake lights and turn signals are at the very lowest part sort of in the center on the sides pretty much where you'd expect but the upper tail light is certainly distinctive another distinctive item back here kind of interesting is this black plastic piece that basically frames the entire rear of the van goes around the entire cargo door kind of interesting it integrates a few things number one is the step to get into the cargo area that's sort of integrated as part of this black frame as opposed to some cargo vehicles where the step just sticks out the back and it looks stupid now it almost seems like it was meant to be there you also have on the sides the grab handles integrated into this area again more grab handles to make it easier to climb into the van you got them on both sides to make it especially easy and once you have the garage door open another grab handle on the inside to once again and make it easy to climb inside maybe the most interesting thing about the back of the van though is the sound that it makes when backing up Vehicles like this are required by regulation to make a sound but it doesn't have to be The Annoying beep beep beep you constantly hear Instead This is the sound apparently this sound was specially developed to be less annoying pedestrians walking along still notice it still take notice still move out of the way but people in buildings don't have to have their day disrupted by the beeping which is high pitched and annoying apparently that's the theory behind that sound anyway but the most distinctive part about the outside of this van is the front which is let's be honest here kind of cute it has kind of a cute cheeky cool little front end makes you feel like it's a friend and I met the rivian designer for this van and other rivian products and he told me that was intentional these Vans are going to be in neighborhoods where people are walking their dogs and kids are playing and they don't want it to look like some big ugly commercial vehicle they want it to seem cute like it fits in like it's friendly and that's exactly what you have hence the round headlights in front this big black Grail it looks friendly and optimistic up front and Amazon's logo being the smile it all sort of in a grades into kind of this friendly happy smiley vehicle at least up front and by the way a couple of interesting quirks in the front for one thing if you look into the headlights you can see tiny little Amazon Smiles hidden in there a nice little Easter egg most people probably won't notice and also in the front you have the Amazon logo right up front again like I said no real rivian branding on this vehicle because they're all being sold to Amazon so you might as well brand it for Amazon also up front you have this cap here which is of course where you add windshield washer fluid this front compartment panel doesn't open up since this is electric there's no engine under here where you might have to service so the only real serviceability item you might need in front is the washer fluid and that's where it is now also up front on the front fender on the driver's side you have this little panel which is of course the charge port you press it pop it open and this is where you charge your rivian Amazon van and on the subject of charging let's talk about power and performance all of these rivian Amazon Vans are front wheel drive but like I said they could offer an all-wheel drive version in theory since it's the same basic architecture as the truck and the SUV both of which are four-wheel drive but for now these are front-wheel drive with a single motor so basically it's half of rivian r1t or half a rivian r1s just the front wheel drive but that means it's still pretty big Power those vehicles have like 850 horsepower this has about half that 425 horsepower in the front wheels 0 to 60 is apparently around eight seconds these are pretty spry Vehicles given that they're large Vans and that was intentional if you're dropping off a package and you needed to merge back into traffic quickly this van can do it and then we must talk about the side of this van which is actually quite interesting these Vans are technically called the edv which stands for electric delivery van or electric delivery vehicle I don't know what nobody says it this is the Amazon rivian van but technically it's the edv and this is the edv 700 which is called that because it has about 700 cubic feet of cargo space for packages in back there is also a smaller model called The edv 500 which is named that because it has 500 cubic feet of storage now the way you can tell them apart quickly is the number of panels on the side four panels on the edv 700 as you can see here one two three four the 500 only has three panels and indeed it is effectively just this van but with one less panel and one of the cool things about using the rivian architecture is it's totally modular they could also make a longer one an edv 900 if they wanted to or theoretically an even shorter one it's all just the number of panels you add or subtract depending on the size of Van you want now the edv 500 is specifically designed and intended for use in like tighter denser urban areas New York City Washington DC and also in Europe and so those vans are not only shorter but also narrower in length than in fact one interesting thing is that when rivian Narrows this van to create the edv 500 on the inside that just means removing this panel from the dashboard they take that out and then the narrower van is built and that allows them to keep the same dashboard panel for both Vans rather than having one wide van panel and one small van panel that would cost them more money now one thing you will also notice on the side of this van is that there's no Arch over the rear wheels instead it's just straight and flat and sort of partially covers that rear wheel two big reasons for this one is aerodynamics putting that cover over the rear wheel helps with Aero and it helps to add range which is why other automakers do it as well the Honda Insight originally had that same cover over the rear wheel same deal with the Honda Clarity also a cover over the rear wheel and you see it here as well for Arrow but another reason they do this is to make sure that the panels on the side of the van are uniform if the rear wheel had an arch over it then the rear panels would also be arched to go over that wheel but by not doing this each panel on the side of the van is a uniform rectangle panel that can be stuck on any van and easily replaced if there's an accident and that makes production easier and repairs easier in case of damage interesting and by the way speaking of aerodynamics and range worth pointing out that this van can travel about 150 miles on pure electric range now I asked the people at rivian hey that seems kind of low and they told me it's all Amazon needs in fact Amazon doesn't even need anywhere near that much if you think about what a typical delivery driver is doing in a typical day they don't go even close to 150 miles they're just stopping all the time in neighborhoods and so that's all the range they had to have for these Vans and as for delivery of the delivery van like I said Amazon is the only customer in the rivian people assure me there are no plans to get these vans in the hands of anybody else but Amazon is starting to roll them out apparently rivian just delivered its 1 000th van to Amazon and they're starting to get around I've seen a few of them on the road in San Diego where I live these electric vans are starting to make their way around this is the future of Amazon package delivery and so that's the electric rivian Amazon delivery van this is tremendously interesting and tremendously quirky and I'm thrilled that I had the chance to check it out and show you all the quirks and features I'm sorry I couldn't get behind the wheel but the Driving Experience is the least interesting part it is so quirky and it was great to see it all and now you know the future of how Amazon will deliver packages by Van [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 2,058,496

Keywords: doug demuro, demuro, doug de muro, rivian edv, rivian van, rivian amazon van, rivian van review, rivian amazon van review, rivian, rivian edv review, rivian electric van review, rivian electric van

Id: 3CWCqJl0BEs

Length: 30min 57sec (1857 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 13 2022