Walmart introduces electric vans from Chevrolet BrightDrop
Walmart, which just announced the expansion of its in-home delivery programme to 62 million homes, will roll out the BrightDrop 400 delivery vans in Austin, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Northwest Arkansas, Orlando and the San Francisco Bay Area by the end of the year.
“With a focus on being people-led and tech-powered, we’re always looking for ways to enhance the associate experience and provide the best possible service to our customers. That’s why we’re so excited about the addition of the BrightDrop 400 to our InHome delivery fleet,” said Warren Moore, Vice President of Dedicated Delivery at Walmart U.S.
Walmart InHome associates, who are trained to deliver groceries directly to customers’ homes, participated in a pilot project with General Motors (GM) to evaluate the overall performance of the BrightDrop 400 in live deployment scenarios, including city driving and customer deliveries. The vehicles easily navigated congested streets and dense residential areas. Automation features such as automatically closing doors increased efficiency and improved comfort for employees. And the ergonomic design with low steps made it easy to get in and out of the vehicles, enabling fast and efficient last-mile deliveries.
“Our BrightDrop vans are purpose-built to get the job done safely and efficiently while helping businesses like Walmart decarbonize their fleet,” said Sandor Piszar, Vice President of GM Envolve. “The pilot program demonstrates that at the forefront of our design are the hard-working drivers that deliver goods and services to customers every day.”
“During the pilot, we listened closely to our InHome associates’ feedback and were impressed by the vans’ performance in real-world scenarios,” added Walmart manager Warren Moore.
The BrightDrop electric vans are manufactured at GM’s CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada. Back in January 2022, General Motors was pleased to receive a reservation for 5,000 BrightDrop vehicles from Walmart. However, it is unclear how many vehicles from the agreement will actually be delivered to Walmart and how many will follow later. Also, reservations are not binding orders, so one should not be too impressed by the figure of 5,000 units. It is also possible that significantly fewer vehicles will be delivered than originally planned.
The still-young electric transporter brand BrightDrop already has an eventful history. BrightDrop was presented to the public in 2021 – the idea was born in the GM Innovation Lab. Initially, the team was able to operate relatively independently of GM management. However, in November 2023, BrightDrop was then integrated into the Group structures and became part of GM Envolve, the company’s fleet business unit.
This was followed by another change in strategy in August 2024: BrightDrop was subordinated to the Chevrolet brand. The integration of the electric commercial vehicle subsidiary is intended to increase its efficiency, improve its growth prospects and reduce costs. This should also allow BrightDrop to utilise Chevrolet’s sales and service network. This could be a real gain, as the BrightDrop website currently lists just seven dealers in the entire USA. Nevertheless, BrightDrop’s sales have recently increased significantly: 992 vehicles were delivered in the first nine months of the current year. That is almost three times more than in the same period last year, when 333 vehicles found a buyer.
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