Amazon will buy thousands of Rivian pedal-assist cargo vehicles as well

Also, Rivian, the micromobility startup, has struck a business deal with Amazon to supply the e-commerce company with thousands of its new cargo-hauling ATVs that are large enough to carry more than 400 pounds of packages and small enough to use a bike lane.

Under the multi-year collaboration, the two companies will customize pedal-assist vehicles to meet Amazon’s delivery needs in Europe and the United States. The TM-Q pedal-assisted electric quad bikes will launch in 2026, according to Also, which were unveiled Wednesday at an event in Auckland alongside the company’s new e-bike called the TM-B.

Although it is a new company, its executives already have a long-standing relationship with Amazon. Rivian, the electric car maker from which it was also born, is backed by Amazon and has provided the company with more than 25,000 electric delivery trucks.

“We really understand how to work with each other,” RJ Scaringe, founder and CEO of Rivian, told TechCrunch ahead of the event, adding that everything they learned from the EDV van program was fed into this project. “This is where having Rivian as a major shareholder is very helpful because we can do all of this close coordination through one fleet management portal that manages your larger vehicles, like EDV trucks, and products as well.”

The advantage, Scaring added, is knowing exactly what Amazon needs. “There’s no guesswork, and it also benefited from a lot of input from the Rivian team, who were involved, because they’re very close to Amazon.

It also started out as a skunkworks company within Rivian and then spun off from the electric car maker earlier this year with a new name and $105 million in funding from Eclipse projects. It is also an independent company, but has close ties to Rivian, which has a minority stake. Scaringe will serve on its board of directors, and will also use—and is already using—the automaker’s technology, retail presence, and economies of scale.

The TM-Q and TM-B e-bike from Also share much of the same DNA, including the drivetrain, a pedal-by-wire system developed by Also. Even some of the physical elements, particularly the handlebars and the integrated 5-inch circular touchscreen that can be operated to lock and unlock the car, are the same. The touchscreen unit, which displays navigation, media controls, fitness stats and assistance levels, also syncs with the app to allow users to check battery charge, download software updates and manage security.

The vehicles also share the same battery technology, although ATVs have more power capacity. Instead of incorporating a large battery into electric quads, it also kept them portable and removable. President Chris Yu also said the company is working on building docking stations for the batteries so you can physically swap them out.

Unlike its consumer two-wheeler sibling, the TM-Q will be designed for commercial uses and include software that handles logistics, delivery and shipping. The TM-Q’s compact system and pedal-assist system make it ideal for delivering packages to customers who live in dense urban areas, according to Emily Barber, Amazon’s global fleet manager.

There is already a micromobility operation for ATVs as well. Amazon has more than 70 micromobility centers in cities across the United States and Europe, Barber said.

Amazon won’t be the only TM-Q customers. Yu also said that seeing how popular the four-wheeler design is within the company, it won’t be entirely limited to its cargo four-wheelers for commercial customers. The company also unveiled a TM-Q consumer model that has the same basic quad platform, but lacks the overhead delivery truck. Instead, the car has a seating system that’s spacious enough to accommodate a few friends, kids, pets or groceries.

There may be other iterations in the future, as Yu and Scarring hinted at.

“It’s not about what’s up here, it’s more about the core quad platform,” Yu said.

This comes with a clear advantage, Scarring noted. “What I like about these things is that making a new hat on a car is worth a billion dollars,” he said, laughing. “But making a new hat here is much less.”