Walmart orders 5,000 electric delivery vans from GM's BrightDrop

GMs BrightDrop has secured additional orders for its all-electric EV600 and EV410 delivery vans. Walmart has reserved 5,000 of the vehicles from the company, Brightdrop announced on Wednesday. Like FedEx, which received the first part of a 500 vehicle order from BrightDrop at the end of last year, the retailer hopes to have an all-electric delivery fleet by 2040. Walmart said it will use the vehicles as part of its InHome delivery business. In 2022, the company plans to expand the availability of the service to 30 million US households by the end of the year. Walmart estimates its first vans from BrightDrop could be on the road as early as 2023.

Alongside the news from Walmart, BrightDrop announced that FedEx had reserved priority production for 2,000 additional EV600 delivery vans, and could order as many as 20,000 more over the next few years. The all-wheel-drive EV600 has 600 cubic feet of cargo storage space and can travel up to 250 miles on a single charge. It also includes auto-locking doors and motion-activated interior lighting.

GM and BrightDrop arent the only companies providing electric vans to some of the biggest parcel delivery companies on the planet. In 2020, FedEx ordered 10,000 EVs from UK-based Arrival. Meanwhile, electric transport startup Rivian is producing 100,000 delivery vans for Amazon.