Amazon began to test road Rivian electric delivery vans in San Francisco.

March 18, 2021: On Thursday, the company announced that Amazon is now testing its electric delivery vans in San Francisco.

It’s the recent expansion in California of Amazon’s custom electric vehicles developed in partnership with start-up Rivian Automotive, which has introduced around $8 billion from investors since 2019.

Last month, Amazon announced that it began to test electric delivery vans in Los Angeles. The company is planning to expand the program to 14 more cities this year.

Amazon has selected San Francisco as one of the starting cities testing electric vans from Rivian because of its “great customers, unique terrain and climate.” Deliveries will be conducted out of Amazon’s delivery station in the San Francisco suburb of Richmond initially, but Amazon expects to begin deliveries from other Bay Area sites soon.

“From what we’ve seen, this is one of the fastest modern commercial electrification programs, and we’re very proud of that,” Amazon global fleet and products director Ross Rachey said.

Amazon, which has backed Rivian through its $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund, was agreed back in September 2019 to purchase 100,000 electric vehicles from the start-up as part of its ambitious push to make Amazon’s fleet run entirely on renewable energy. Each van has a range of 150 miles per charge.

Since then, Amazon said, it has been operating thousands of electric vehicles worldwide. In 2020, it said it delivered more than 20 million packages using electric delivery vehicles across North America and Europe.

To make the shift to electric vehicles, Amazon again designed its delivery stations, adding thousands of electric vehicle chargers. Amazon added that the cars are being driven by Amazon employees who are specially trained to operate them.

Amazon revealed a version of the electric delivery vans previously. They feature a boxier design, the familiar Prime branding, and upgraded safety features like an advanced driver-assist system and exterior cameras that give the driver a 360-degree view outside the vehicle.

Amazon is still refining its electric delivery vans before production, which Rivian plans for the fourth quarter of this year.