Happy Friday, and welcome to Critical Materials, your source for the biggest stories shaping the future of the auto industry.

Every Friday, we break down one big mobility story and recap the week’s must-read news on driverless cars, batteries, charging, and more.

– Today’s email was written by Rob Stumpf and Tim Levin.

The R2 is clearly the star of the show for Rivian. Designed from the start to be cheaper than its flagship R1 line of rugged EVs, the $45,000 crossover is Rivian’s first real shot at taking on the Tesla Model Y and a shiny beacon of hope for its scramble toward profitability. The gamble is paying off. On Thursday, the California startup announced that the R2 was its best-selling vehicle in Q3, just a few months after it hit the market in June. 

But there’s another, less flashy vehicle in Rivian’s stable that’s quietly cleaning up and becoming a serious revenue driver: the humble EDV commercial van. You’ve probably seen the bug-eyed cargo-hauler silently doing Amazon-delivery duty in your neighborhood. Get ready to see a whole lot more of them.  

“This year we have seen a significant step up in the level of demand from Amazon,” Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said on an earnings call this week. He said the logistics giant, which was an early Rivian investor, is scooping up more vans due to the vehicle’s lower running costs. That’s not hard to believe, given the lower maintenance burden of running EVs generally and the eye-watering price for diesel these days.

“It's creating true and very real structural cost advantages that are leading Amazon to double down to continue to buy more vehicles,” Scaringe said. 

While Rivian doesn’t break out delivery volumes across models, the company’s financials point to a booming van business. In just the third quarter, Amazon paid Rivian $596 million, more than it did through the first three quarters of last year combined. So far this year, Rivian booked $1.6 billion in revenue from Amazon—primarily related to EDV sales—a nearly threefold increase year-over-year. 

It faces a shrinking competitive field, too, as other players in the medium-duty EV space struggle to gain traction or bow out. Ford has sold fewer than 700 E-Transit vans this year, an 85% drop over the same period in 2025, and it canceled a next-generation model. General Motors axed its BrightDrop electric delivery vans entirely late last year. 

It’s really Rivian and other EV startups that are driving the electrification of commercial vehicles in America, says Ray Minjares, who runs the heavy-duty vehicles program at the International Council on Clean Transportation. Rivian is leading in medium-duty EVs, he said, while Tesla’s Semi is making waves in long-haul trucking. Harbinger Motors, another U.S. startup, just struck a deal to supply 2,000 electric trucks to FedEx.

“The dynamics that are playing out now in the U.S. market are basically being led by the EV-only manufacturers,” he said.

Rivian is doubling down. Last year, it opened up fleet orders to companies apart from Amazon, starting at $79,900. This week it said it started delivering two new EDV variants to Amazon that are aimed at tackling more routes: One has all-wheel drive and another has 30% more range.

And another big partnership could be in the works; a photo of an EDV on a transporter truck wearing a Walmart livery went viral this week. Rivian executives avoided commenting on the photo directly when analysts asked about it on the earnings call this week, but Scaringe said the company is talking to other potential EDV customers. 

“We do see other commercial operators, as they start to really look at ways to drive more efficiency into the business, starting to look at the EDV,” he said. “And we're excited for those potential future customers on this program as well.”

-Tim Levin

Che bello! The tiny $15,000 Fiat Topolino is finally hitting American roads as a street-legal car. It has 46 miles of range and a top speed of 25 mph.

Suvrat Kothari drove the 2027 Nissan Rogue Hybrid, which functions a lot more like an EV than a typical Toyota hybrid. The dual-motor electric powertrain propels the car, while a gas engine provides energy to the battery. Read his review here.

Zeekr is in it for the long-haul in Europe, despite tariffs and other trade barriers, the company’s Europe CEO told Mack Hogan in an interview.

The EU hit a milestone last quarter: EV sales surpassed gas and diesel cars combined. (They still have yet to catch hybrids, though.) We discuss that and more on this week’s Plugged-In Podcast.

Rivian says that it's smashing its sales expectations this year, mainly thanks to its new R2 electric SUV. The R2 was officially Rivian’s best-seller in Q3, and now it’s expecting a blowout Q4.

Volkswagen's EV game is surprisingly strong. But with lower profit margins, it's actually hurting VW's bottom line more than helping.

Former Top Gear host James May got to spend some time with Slate's $25,000 EV pickup. His best descriptor? "Unburdensome." And that might be the whole point.

China's used EV market is growing quickly, but not within its own walls. It turns out that Europe is a hotspot for used Chinese EVs as a way to avoid tariffs. One exporter has seen a 280% increase in deliveries so far this year.

Volkswagen has reportedly suspended the development of the Golf EV, saying that it "simply can't afford this work right now" as it faces a $336 million company-wide shortfall.

Chinese EV are starting to win over Korean buyers, but Japan (where EVs have historically been a tougher sell) is proving to be a much more difficult market to crack.

ChargePoint has started deploying 750-kilowatt-capable EV fast chargers co-developed with power veteran Eaton. But its best trick? It combines the power cabinet with the charging stall into one single unit to reduce deployment complexity.

We learned more about the Fathom’s bidirectional charging capability this week too. It will be able to output more than 10 kW to your home without an external inverter thanks to onboard DC-to-AC hardware. That’ll result in a home-backup system that’s about 60% cheaper than the F-150 Lightning’s.

Ford's focused on making sure that its next-gen EV tech can compete with what's coming out of China—not just from a cost standpoint, but efficiency as well. Jim Farley said the UEV platform’s powertrain is 30% more efficient than what you’d find in a BYD, allowing it to use smaller batteries.

The Blue Oval isn't alone. Toyota is efficiency-maxxing too, but it's focused on making its hybrid powertrains uber-efficient. Its next PHEVs and mild hybrids are said to be 15% more efficient than its current tech.

Tesla's structural 4680 battery pack in the Model Y is a repair nightmare. But that all changes with the Cybercab, which moves to a semi-structural design.

Waymo will use the Toyota bZ4X as its next robotaxi for Japan. It joins a fleet of Jaguar I-Paces, Zeekr vans, and, soon, Hyundai Ioniq 5s.

Tesla's Full Self-Driving software is hitting European streets. With some steep hills and tight gaps, the driving landscape is significantly different than American roads. Here's how its handling the changes.

And for countries where FSD isn't broadly available (like South Korea), owners have uncovered ways to unlock the tech anyway. Now police are cracking down.

GM is pushing heavy on a multi-sensor approach for its self-driving tech. Sterling Anderson told The Verge that ditching radar "ignores physics” and is a “weird religious stance.”

Kodiak AI struck a deal to supply 75 autonomous trucks to DTL Transport by 2028. “It’s the company’s first binding commercial deal for driverless big rigs that will run on public highways,” TechCrunch reports.

-Rob Stumpf

On this week’s Plugged-In Podcast, we’re joined by Rivian Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid to discuss in-car AI, zonal architectures, and what’s next on the tech front from the EV startup.

Thanks for reading Critical Materials. See you next week!