Rivian IPO filing reveals details on preorders and more

One of the more exciting electric vehicle startups on the market today is Rivian. Not long ago, the automaker began producing its first customer vehicles, with deliveries expected to begin this month. Rivian is also getting ready to go public and recently filed paperwork for its IPO.

The paperwork filed for its IPO shed light on exactly how well the automaker has been doing leading up to its first customer deliveries. IPO paperwork disclosed that Rivian had taken nearly 50,000 preorders for vehicles so far. The filing paperwork also revealed details about the deal between Rivian and Amazon. Amazon is one of the biggest investors in Rivian and will get a huge fleet of electric delivery vans from Rivian.

Amazon gets exclusive rights to the first four years after receiving the first Rivian electric delivery van as part of the investment. Amazon also has the right to refuse an additional two years of Rivian's production capacity for electric delivery vans. Amazon has ordered 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from Rivian to be delivered by 2030.

The first 10,000 vehicles are to be delivered this year. While Rivian has to give Amazon all its electric delivery vehicle production for at least four years, Amazon is not tied to using Rivian exclusively. That means we will see other brands of electric delivery vehicles being fielded by the e-commerce giant.

Amazon delivers a staggering number of packages, and anyone in an Amazon delivery area knows how many trucks are working at any given time. Rivian would be valued at about $80 billion according to its IPO, and the filing lists the size of its offering at $100 million, but that could be changed when the price for shares is set.