GM Electric Vehicle Subsidiary BrightDrop Signs Supply Agreements with Walmart and FedEx

[Photo by Reuters-Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] BrightDrop, the electric vehicle subsidiary of American General Motors (GM), has secured large-scale contracts from Walmart and FedEx, CNBC reported on the 5th (local time).

Walmart announced that it has signed a new contract for 5,000 BrightDrop vans. FedEx also revealed an additional purchase contract for 2,000 vans. FedEx stated that with the additional 2,000 vans, it could increase its electric van fleet to 20,000 in the future.

FedEx was BrightDrop's first customer, having previously ordered 500 vans. BrightDrop began delivering the initial 500 vans to FedEx starting last month.

Travis Katz, CEO of BrightDrop, said he expects to deliver all 500 vans from FedEx's initial order within this year. He also anticipated that deliveries for Walmart's new contract of 5,000 vans could begin next year.

CEO Katz stated that BrightDrop has already secured orders totaling 25,000 vans.

Recently, large retail and logistics companies have been signing bulk purchase contracts for electric vans. This is due to the U.S. government's eco-friendly policy initiatives, which require reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the future. FedEx and Walmart have already announced plans to achieve zero carbon emissions in their delivery processes by 2040.

Amazon has placed an order for 100,000 delivery vehicles with the electric vehicle startup Rivian by 2030. Of these, 10,000 are expected to be delivered to Amazon within this year. Amazon holds a 20% stake in Rivian.

British electric vehicle startup Arrival also plans to deliver 10,000 electric vehicles to UPS by 2024. The U.S. Postal Service plans to purchase 165,000 Oshkosh electric vehicles over the next decade.

GM plans to start producing the EV410 van, which is smaller than the currently produced EV600 van, by the end of next year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.