Amazon delivery driver, Jasmeet Gill, was my assigned driver as we took to his Vancouver area route to see how the Rivian 700 van performed, in-person. I started by asking him about his typical day.

Gill: When we scan all the cars, everything shows up here, like our route. So from here, we can check today’s stops and the map. We are going to the Richmond area, and these are my stops. Okay. So 53 stops, 204 parcels today. Usually, after backing up the van, we wait for the instructions from the safety staff, then we’re good to go.

When I caught up with Jasmeet, he had been driving the Rivian van for about two months. I asked him for his overall impressions to date.

Gill: It’s great. There are many features, especially for the winter. Heated steering, and it’s easy to get out of this seat. In the other [vehicle], we have to pull up. In this, it’s a little bit lower, so it’s easy to go back and pick up the packages. And there’s also plenty of space at the back. That’s easy.

Do you have to worry about your range running out of electricity on the way, or is it all mapped in and calculated to how far you go?

Gill: On a full charge, it goes to about 250 kilometers. Usually, per day, we have to go around 80-90 kilometers.

Oh, so you got lots of power?

Gill: Yeah. Lots of power.

While Jasmeet enjoyed the handling of the van, its quietness, and the technology that simplifies his delivery schedule, it was another driver-friendly feature that caught my eye.

One of the neat features about the Rivian van is when the driver puts the vehicle into park, the cargo door opens automatically. It might seem like a small thing, but when you have hundreds of packages to deliver in a day, it adds up.

Feedback such as that from Jasmeet has given Amazon and its delivery service partners plenty of reasons to embrace the adoption of electric vans, and it’s a good thing. The company has promised to deploy 100,000 of these vans across North America by 2030 on its path to being a net-zero carbon emission company by two thousand and forty.

Check out our previous video for an in-depth look at the Rivian 700 van itself.