in a number of cities throughout 2021. Now, Amazon says it will use the electric vehicles to make deliveries in a handful of cities, including Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Nashville, Tennessee, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle and St. Louis, among others.
"Fighting the effects of climate change requires constant innovation and action, and Amazon is partnering with companies who share our passion for inventing new ways to minimize our impact on the environment," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. "Rivian has been an excellent partner in that mission, and we're excited to see our first custom electric delivery vehicles on the road.
Amazon oversees a mammoth shipping and logistics network, and much of its delivery operations are in-house. As part of that, it increasingly relies upon an sprawling army of contracted delivery companies to ferry packages to customers' doorsteps, which primarily use dark blue Amazon-branded vans that burn fossil fuels.