Electric cars, trucks and SUVs are quickly becoming more mainstream options for large numbers of American new vehicle buying households.
Big commitments from the same brands bringing those models to market has led to business owners having new electric vehicle (EV) options for their upcoming fleet purchases. The Rivian EDV, Ford E-Transit and Mercedes-Benz eSprinter commercial vans, and the forthcoming all-electric version of the Ram ProMaster are all players.
Amazon has ordered 100,000 Rivian EDVs, an agreement that runs through 2030. Company filings from earlier this year show that Amazon owns around 18 percent of the equity in Rivian.
The online retailer has also worked with Ram, a Stellantis brand, to design a battery electric vehicle (BEV) "with unique last mile delivery features". Amazon will be the first commercial customer for the Ram ProMaster BEV, which is slated to launch in 2023.
In September, Rivian and Mercedes-Benz signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a strategic partnership for the joint production of electric vans.
FedEx was the first customer to take delivery of General Motors new BrightDrop Zevo 600. The 150 electric vans, which can go up to 250 miles on a full charge, have been deployed throughout Southern California.
Ford Motor Company sells the Ford E-Transit through it's Ford Pro division, which also handles commercial sales of the Ford F-150 Lightning all-electric pickup truck.
Ford Pro offers a comprehensive suite of electric fleet solutions from the vehicles themselves to charger installation, telematics software and service plans. The division can also help arrange for the financing of the adoption of those solutions.
The company just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Deutsche Post DHL Group for 2,000 electric vans including the use of Ford Pro's connected E-Telematics software and charging solutions.
FedEx Office is currently running 10 E-Transit vans in their FedEx SameDay City fleet in nine cities: Chandler, Arizona; Newark, California; Boca Raton, Florida; Clearwater, Florida; Plantation, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; Madison Heights, Michigan; Allen, Texas and Frisco, Texas.
"There are a lot of usage cases for EVs that remain questionable but one that's certainly fit for them is last-mile delivery. Many commercial operators, whether it be e-commerce shops like Amazon that do direct-to-door shipping, FedEx and DHL, or think about, for example, an auto parts stores that have a fleet of small pickup trucks that really don't travel far beyond the realms of other local shops," Robby DeGraff, industry analyst at AutoPacific told Newsweek.
Ford says that the average daily range for commercial vans in the U.S. is 74 miles. Its E-Transit has a targeted 126 miles of range on a single charge.
"The realistic logged miles each day is almost certainly doable with the charged battery's range and come nightfall, all of these electric vans, like the E-Transit, return home to their hubs and can sit overnight on a slow Level 2 charger," DeGraff said.
Despite other brands' vehicles having come to market ahead of the E-Transit, through November E-Transit sales represented an 80 percent share of the electric van market in the U.S.
Ford plans to capitalized on that success by offering the E- Transit Custom, E-Tourneo Custom, E-Transit Courier and E-Tourneo Courier, as well as three new electric passenger vehicles, in Europe by 2024.
By the end of 2023, Ford plans to have the E-Transit family represent 25 percent of its 600,000 global annual EV run rate. In addition to the E-Transit and F-150 Lightning, Ford sells the Mustang Mach-E electric crossover.
The automaker recently celebrated its 150,000th Mustang Mach-E rolling off the assembly line. It will be available in 37 countries in 2023.
In 2021, the Mustang Mach-E became the first EV to pass the Michigan State Police 2022 model year evaluation, paving the way toward potential police fleet sales of the model on a mass scale.
Tesla delivered the first two of its all-electric Semi trucks to PepsiCo last week.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Eileen Falkenberg-Hull leads the Autos team at Newsweek. She has written extensively about the auto industry for U.S. News & ... Read more
