GM confirms hiring supplier to build first electric vans for BrightDrop

General Motors will use a German parts supplier to initially build its new electric commercial van for its BrightDrop startup.

The move will keep GM’s BrightDrop, a commercial van and software business, on schedule to deliver the EV600 vans to its initial customer, Fedex.

The initial production will be “low-volume” mainly to keep up with market demand, said GM spokesman David Barnas. GM will share more details later on production size and a specific production start date.

GM’s startup BrightDrop will launch the EV600 (pictured here) later this year. The first 500 will go to FedEx. It is an electric commercial truck with a 250-mile range on a full charge.

“The interest we’re receiving is significant,” said Travis Katz, BrightDrop CEO, in a statement. “We are working alongside Kuka for initial low-volume production to keep up with market demand and remain on track to deliver our first EV600 order later this year.”

GM plans to make the EV600s at its CAMI Assembly in Ontario, Canada, starting around November 2022. At that time, the plant will have been converted to a dedicated EV plant for “long-term large-scale BrightDrop EV600 production,” Katz said.

The decision to use Kuka was first reported by Reuters, which described it as “not typical in the industry.” 

But GM had said earlier this year that it would launch the EV600 vans by late 2021 and since CAMI won’t be ready by then, the supplier’s use was necessary if GM is to stick to its business plan.

Kuka is headquartered in Augsburg, Germany, and specializes in making industrial robots and other parts for factory automation, according to its website. It has been owned by the Chinese company Midea Group since 2016.

GM announced the creation of  BrightDrop in January saying it will initially offer two products: The EP1, an electrically powered pallet to move packages, and the EV600, a commercial electric truck resembling the familiar big brown UPS truck. 

GM is not the first carmaker to enter this space. In 2019, Amazon said it would purchase 100,000 electric vans from electric truck maker Rivian. Amazon said it expects to deploy 10,000 of them by 2022. The difference is BrightDrop will offer software and services as well.