Just two years ago, in 2021, American carmaking giant GM decided it would be best to venture into the commercial delivery segment with something not many other companies are offering at the moment: electric delivery vans. And it seems this idea was the right one, as firms operating in this segment are going nuts about these things.
GM’s venture into this segment is spearheaded by a company called BrightDrop. Its main product is the BrightDrop Zevo, an unassuming but capable machine that could be considered Godsent for those looking for cheap ways to deliver their goods to where they’re needed.
In the Zevo 600 configuration, as it's sold now, the van can carry 600 cubic feet (17 cubic meters) of cargo, weighing as much as 2,200 pounds (about a ton). It moves the stuff with help from electric motors delivering 300 hp to all four wheels. As for the most important aspect of an electric delivery van, range, that is rated by BrightDrop at 160 miles (257 km), well within what delivery companies need.
To make the Zevos, BrightDrop completed work on an assembly facility in Ontario, Canada, at the beginning of the year. Production lines in the converted CAMI plant have been busy since, and this week the company announced the first batch of 500 electric vans made there is already en route to their customers.
More importantly, BrightDrop says the 2023 model year Zevo 600 is already sold out – even if it doesn’t say how many of them were slotted to be made for 2023, the planned production run was probably not that large, to begin with. Reservations for the 2024 BrightDrop are now open, but we’re not told what changes, if any, the new model year version of the van will bring.
Photo: BrightDrop
If you’re thinking the Zevo is a type of vehicle that will come and go from this industry largely unnoticed, think again. From 2025, GM plans to make each year 50,000 units of the thing and send them all out onto the roads. It plans this because of the high demand and attention the van seems to have attracted. Some 30 delivery, rental and parcel companies have expressed interest in the thing, including giants FedEx (the launch customer for the van), Walmart, Hertz, and DHL Express.
The latest crew to join the BrightDrop fun wagon this week is truck rental behemoth Ryder, which said it will buy 4,000 Zevos for the needs of its fleet by the middle of the decade.
The CAMI facility is now completely dedicated to the production of the BrightDrop Zevo used to make the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain closer to our time, but the location’s more distant past is also forever tied with cars wearing the badges of Pontiac and even Suzuki.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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