(Green Car Reports) – Walmart is adding Chevrolet BrightDrop 400 electric vans to its U.S. home delivery fleet.
The vans will be deployed in Austin, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, northwest Arkansas, Orlando, and the San Francisco Bay Area before the end of the year, General Motors said in a press release. They’ll be used for Walmart’s InHome service, which provides delivery of groceries from stores to nearby customer homes.
GM and Walmart initially ran a pilot program with the vans, which got positive reviews from employees for their driver aids, automated features like automatic-closing doors, and ease of ingress and egress, the release said.
The 400 is the shorter-wheelbase option, with a long-wheelbase BrightDrop 600 van also available. GM estimates 159 miles of range with the standard battery pack and 272 miles with a larger optional pack. The vans use the same component set, branded as Ultium until recently, as GM’s current generation of electric passenger vehicles.
GM launched BrightDrop as a separate brand in January 2021, but folded it into Chevrolet in August of this year. Production is still assigned to GM’s CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, which has been building BrightDrop vans since late 2021. Earlier customers included FedEx and the Ryder rental fleet.
Related Articles
- Ford pausing F-150 Lighting electric truck production for six weeks
- Aptera finally built a production-intent working 3-wheel EV
- Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX fall short in crash tests
- Scout previews pet and camp modes in electric truck concepts
- Electric hydrofoil ferry uses 80% less energy, and it can fly
Walmart has long shown interest in electric vehicles. In 2022, the retail chain placed a larger order with Canoo for 4,500 electric vans—effectively breathing new life into the struggling startup, for a short period of time, at least. Some Walmart stores also host Electrify America charging stations, and the company announced its own EV charging network in 2023.
