I’m calling it right now: The BrightDrop Zevo 600 is the most exciting vehicle I’ve driven all year. More exciting than the Hyundai Ioniq 6, more exciting than the 2024 Ford Mustang GT, and more exciting than something I bought with my own money last week.
This is despite most people having never heard of BrightDrop, and the fact that the everyday person won’t be able to walk into a showroom and buy one for themselves. However, this isn’t some sort of sold-out seven-figure exotic machine forged by artisans out of pure unobtanium. Its acceleration figures, grip figures, and Nürburgring time simply don’t matter. Not that anyone would attempt a ‘Ring time in this astonishing slab of machinery. (Editor’s Note: Well, now I want to. —PG) Instead, the BrightDrop Zevo 600 might soon be at your doorstep, dropping off parcels—if you’re lucky enough to live near where the first deliveries have taken place, it may have already done just that.
When I was invited by a friend to drive a BrightDrop Zevo 600, how could I say no? This wasn’t a media event per se, as evidenced by the leagues of upfitters and fleet managers in attendance. However, an event is an event, and a vehicle like this felt too important to miss. So sit down, pour yourself a beverage, and get ready to learn a bit about an electric delivery vehicle you never knew you wanted.
Can Someone Tell Me What A BrightDrop Is?
Certainly, General Motors has always been a company of diverse products, and BrightDrop is its crack at the electric commercial vehicle market—specifically targeting last-mile delivery, which means the final step of a parcel’s journey to your doorstep. Like Cruise on the robo-taxi side, GM sees some real potential in delivering goods in a zero-emission fashion, which will be just as crucial to combatting climate change as passenger cars.
In addition to offering automated warehouse carts, BrightDrop dropped a van line as intriguing as it is pioneering. Fitted with GM’s Ultium modular battery packs and built at the same CAMI plant that once assembled Geo Metros, the BrightDrop vans (the smaller 400 and larger 600) are looking to shake up the last-mile delivery arena.
FedEx is already trialing the vans, with the first 150 delivered in June of 2022. Right now, customers include Ryder, Purolator, Hertz, Walmart, DHL Express, and American Tire Distributors, with thousands of vans planned to roll out of CAMI in the next few years.
The Inside View
Let’s start inside the most important part of the BrightDrop vans: The cargo area. Unsurprisingly, both of the BrightDrop vans are positively commodious, affording genuine walk-in height for reasonably tall people and plenty of wall space for shelving.
You could carry an awful lot of car parts, clothing, electronics, and whatever people are shopping online for in the back of one of these babies, up to 615 cu.-ft. in the Zevo 600. The cargo area of the Zevo 400 is pictured above, so just know that things get nearly 50 percent bigger than that.
All the modern driver assistance systems imaginable are on deck, from automatic emergency braking to a handy 360-degree camera system. GM’s latest infotainment system is here, too, the same one you’ll see in vehicles like the Chevrolet Trax and GMC Canyon.
However, beyond all the driving and connectivity gadgets and gizmos, there’s a small set of features delivery drivers are sure to be particularly stoked for.
It’s long been said that GM starts with an air conditioning system and then builds a car around it, and that truly feels the case here. Not only is the Zevo 600’s climate control immediate, it’s unexpectedly strong for a commercial vehicle, and that’s before we get to creature comforts like a heated driver’s seat, a heated steering wheel, and heated mirrors. It’s a stark contrast from the often non-air-conditioned cabins of traditional delivery vehicles, and it should reduce driver fatigue, which could increase safety and well-being.
Beyond climate-focused creature comforts, the interior of this van is clearly well thought-out. There’s a cupholder atop the dashboard on the left of the steering wheel for a morning cup of joe, a set of bright red seatbelts for easier location, amazing dual-folding visors for blocking particularly low sun, and convenient grab handles for ease of entry and egress in slippery conditions.
I didn’t expect build quality to feel this tight. Sure, almost everything from the dashboard plastics to the rubberized floor coverings is installed with hardiness in mind, but I couldn’t find a single creak or piece of misaligned trim. Cadillac division, take note.
Get Shorty
While the BrightDrop Zevo 600 has been spotted out and about doing courier duties, its smaller Zevo 400 brother only just started production, and it’s looking to take some of the traditional cargo van market’s lunch money with a total length of 239 inches. That’s an inch shorter than a standard-length Ford Transit, while a total height of nine feet clocks in at a little more than two inches lower than a high-roof Transit. The BrightDrop Zevo 400 is a remarkably van-sized van, it just looks enormous because it’s shaped like a brick.
With a massive 412 cu.-ft. of cargo volume and a maximum payload of up to 2,450 pounds, the BrightDrop Zevo 400 should be an ideal option for city-focused businesses that aren’t height-constrained. You certainly aren’t fitting this thing in a parking garage and many drive-thrus are out of the question, but it has the right sort of footprint for broader appeal.
However, the Zevo 400 at the event was an unfinished model full of blank buttons and featuring a non-finalized underbody. To get a taste of what BrightDrop’s vans are like to drive, I’d need to step into the big boy Zevo 600.
Driving The BrightDrop Zevo 600
You might expect maneuvering more than 24 feet of step van to be intimidating, like navigating the Suez Canal knowing full well what the internet will do if you cock things up. However, this enormous package hauler is friendlier than a labradoodle, and easier to drive than most full-size pickup trucks. How did GM manage that?
Let’s start with visibility. The view out of the front is truly panoramic thanks to an enormous windshield and useful A-pillar windows, while the microwave-sized mirrors feature convex elements to show you exactly where your rear wheels are. Even without resorting to the 360-degree camera system, drivers will know exactly where their wheels are at all times.
Then there’s the comfort afforded by designing a commercial vehicle around an electric drivetrain from the start. The BrightDrop Zevo 600 is unbelievably quiet, like a six-figure vehicle of vastly different stripes. Even with a cargo box the size of an average New York City apartment behind you, this thing would be ’90s Lexus quiet if it weren’t for the clunking of metallic shelves over potholes and speed bumps. Oh yeah, then there’s the phenomenal ride quality afforded by independent front suspension, a solid rear axle with composite leaf springs, and BrightDrop’s construction techniques. There’s none of the body-on-frame wobble associated with heavy vehicles, and the damping feels spot-on.
Add in light steering, a relatively tight turning circle, and impeccably smooth one-pedal driving, and you get a formula that makes driving a breeze. Next to the BrightDrop Zevo 600, even a Chevrolet Tahoe feels cumbersome and unrefined, to say nothing of the litany of combustion-powered step vans currently in use. I’m not suggesting you toss the keys to someone on their learner’s permit, but this thing’s as stress-free as a motorized apartment building gets. Dare I say, it might be my favorite EV I’ve ever driven since it’s a comprehensive leap forward over its combustion-powered predecessors with no desirable traits lost in the switch to electric power. Imagine jumping out of an oxcart and into the USS Enterprise. That’s how different the BrightDrop Zevo 600 feels.
The Future’s Electric
Driving away from the event, I thought about how often we could be seeing BrightDrop vans over the next few years.
Really, local delivery is a perfect use case for electric vehicles. Vans cover relatively short routes within an extremely localized radius, are constantly stopping and starting, and come home to a depot overnight. The stop-start efficiency of electric powertrains, the ability to charge overnight, and the modest 250-mile range are an excellent fit for parcel drop-offs, and could, in theory, make neighborhoods of the future cleaner, quieter, and more pleasant overall.
What might the future hold for BrightDrop? Well, GM doesn’t have the greatest history of fresh subsidiaries. Saturn was slowly smothered with the aged, yellowed pillow of stuffy corporate bureaucracy, and more recently, its Cruise autonomous vehicle startup isn’t exactly going smooth as butter. However, BrightDrop isn’t stepping on any existing product’s toes; building an electric commercial vehicle with a lot of existing parts bin tech certainly seems feasible, and it feels like GM might have something here.
A BrightDrop representative confirmed that small fleet sales and even chassis cab variants are in the cards for the future. One use case the vans might not be fit for? Recreational vehicles. Although a BrightDrop rep claimed that the RV industry has expressed interest in the van, payload concerns may prevent it from being a viable option. Even with the option box for an 11,000-pound GVWR ticked, payload capacity only clocks in at 2,800 pounds for the Zevo 600 and 2,450 pounds for the Zevo 400. Once you add water tanks, furniture, interior paneling, rear HVAC, and a commode, load capacity for humans and their stuff starts to run awfully thin.
With any luck, the BrightDrop Zevo 600 might be the Tesla Model S of commercial vehicles. It’s a massive leap forward for urban delivery fleets, both in driver comfort and in the cost of running.
Although battery-powered step vans have historically been dalliances, GM’s latest crack could make combustion-powered alternatives feel like they’re from decades ago. We never know what the future holds, but if these funky BrightDrops are part of it, I’m all here for it.
You can keep your flying cars, I’ll take an electric delivery van.
(Photo credits: Thomas Hundal)
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Wow, it looks like something designed by The Bishop! Cool ride 😎
It sounds like it’s almost there to update my 26′ 1973 GMC Motorhome, but, yeah, that’s not a lot of payload.
I hope they keep making the Express/Savana until they come up with something better than this. I’m not sure they can make a replacement for those until there’s a better charging network or some miracle new battery type. This could work for the situations the author mentions but most of the uses of the existing cargo van platform could not be fulfilled by a vehicle similar to the smaller Brightdrop.
I use a cargo van for my construction business and have always bought used. Even when they do come out with a viable EV replacement for the cargo van I worry that the used ones will all have significant battery degradation and be either marginal or unusable for work. So I’m thinking then I’ll either have to bite the bullet and buy new, hope for a lightly used church e-van to fall in my lap or start collecting Expresses now to cannibalize in the years to come.
How old do you typically go? The Ultium batteries have pretty beefy thermal management systems and should go 15 years
I saw one of these out in the wild in downtown Seattle, across from Amazon HQ back in May. It had no markings on it and the guys using it to deliver office furniture didn’t have company branded clothing on. Definitely looks better than the Rivian. Speaking of the Rivian I saw one of those the other day that was not Amazon blue, it was actually a Rivian mobile service unit in just plain white with just basic lettering on the door that gave it away.
Too small for UPS, oddball parts will keep it out of the USPS fleet too, and why’d they reinvent the step van when up fitters like Lightning have already electrified step vans? Another billion dollar bamboozle reflective of the bad old days of GM!
No pricing info, but a high-roof, extended body Transit starts at $52k+. If this suits your company’s needs and is around $65-70k, it’s probably a pretty good deal when you figure for reduced fuel and maintenance costs.
RIP, Sabine Schmitz, Queen of the ‘Ring and hero of my TopGear-watching-years.
Came here to say this.
I’ve long thought she could’ve beaten Clarkson’s Jaaaaaaaaaag time in a left-hand drive van. Bringing a right-hand drive all the way from Britain for a German to drive in Germany was subtler than the usual TG cheating, though.
Having driven a Ford E350 Super Duty 20 ft box truck for 10 years I would love to drive one of these to compare. See how many tortillas I could haul. Also that 250 mile range is just on the cusp so winter is a red flag.
Looks constipated.
Remember when last mile deliveries were done by electric vehicles? Pepperidge Far…. er, uh, I mean, Dairy Crest remembers.
Nice to see the inside of these things! They look nice and easy on the operators. Been watching one of these drive around my neighborhood for months now, been kinda cool.
I saw them running around as Fedex trucks in downtown Toronto over the summer. I see them useful for inner city / office high density deliveries use cases.
Regardless of anything else, it has buttons and knobs so it can’t be all that bad. Though don’t see a D-P-R shifter, that is not a lever/button.
I think the square / rectangular protrusion underneath the screen is the “shifter”
These are a common sight around Los Angeles, where FedEx is testing the fleet. They do look really sleek. Oddly though, every single one of them is missing the wheel center caps. Either GM did not have time to manufacture enough of those, or they are attached with hopes and good wishes.
If it’s built at CAMI, I’m on board. My Tracker (Vitara) has oddly been the most rattle-free and well put together vehicles I’ve ever owned. 220,000 miles and still going strong!
With the Ingersoll (CAMI) plant down till next Spring due to battery supply issues.. it will be a scarce item to obtain!
Looks like my 1st gen xB grew up.
Granted this is one of the fugliest EVs I have seen to date, This is where the EV push should have started. Delivery vans, buses, ambulances, fire trucks, school busses.
unfortunately the overall sales volume as well as historical margins on work trucks/vans makes this market surprisingly difficult to justify, especially when the EV alternatives cost an order of magnitude more per unit and the the required Chargng stations require even more up front capital.
But they save you so much money of fuel and maintenance… /s
In theory after many years, yes, but the initial outlay does not usually have the standard required 3 year ROI. And if you have to use level 3 chargers out in the world the lost time and cost per mile reduces the gain fast
I think the custom USPS ones are the fugliest.
I think it looks okay. It looks better to me that the Chevy/GMC Express/Savannah
Tough crowd here in the comments. I love this thing, the huge expanse of glass is awesome and the sleepy cat front end is classy.
I agree! My first reaction was that it looks like one of those Playmobil toy vans – in the best possible sense. Their vehicle designs were always clean and simple, yet detailed and believable.
Yes these do look so much more modern. It could be the result of after the workable design was created there was very little design change. It makes stellantis look like a remodel king.
As an outsider looking in, knowing nothing about this nor the Rivian, this isn’t as cool as the Rivian van.
And this article shared very little of the important info that would truly compare the two units
All these EVs have names like internet passwords: must have at least 14 characters; must have upper and lower case letters; must have at least two numbers … enough already
Why isn’t it badged as a GMC? It’s a commercial vehicle, isn’t that their professional grade division? I thought their whole strategy over the past 14 years was based on dropping brands, not adding them
How many actual commercial vehicles do you see that are GMCs? Most GMCs are simply a Chevy (or Buick, or Cadillac) that people bought because it wasn’t the badged as the vehicle it was based on.
I haven’t seen a GMC flatbed, dump truck, or whatever, commercial vehicle in ages.
All the GMCs I see are just stupid lifted trucks that are clearly just for posing with something ‘better’ than a Chevy.
I see them daily, though the Chevy versions being lower dough are certainly more the norm.
Those payloads are really light even for a delivery truck. I used to load trucks for UPS, and when we were cramming 300+ packages on there, we definitely were well over the 2500 lbs this can do. That’s really not enough for a lot of use cases. I am sure it’s sufficient for some routes, but it would benefit from beefing that up to at least 3k-3500. But then you are going to sacrifice some of the ride quality, especially unladen of course.
I wonder if there is some tax/regulatory advantage to topping out at 11,000 GVWR since all the large vans seem to stop there.
Fair question. I skimmed over that point. That’s probably where light duty ends or something but yeah I don’t know.
For trucks the cutoffs are 10,000 lb (3/4 ton) and 14,000 (1 ton duallies) but again, I have no idea if vans are different or if 11,000 being the top GVWR for this, the Transit, and the Sprinter is just coincidence.
I would guess vans are the same, but then the 11k doesn’t make sense so I don’t know. It’s also interesting that they state the payload is 2800 for the 600 at 11k, but 2500 for the 400. If they are capping at the 11k lbs, wouldn’t it make more sense that the 400 would actually end up with a higher payload due to the van itself being lighter?
is it normally 10k lbs, but with a bonus 1k for an electric vehicle?
No idea. Maybe DT will do a deep dive into it for us so we can all understand better???
Here in Quebec, 11000 would be the limit, IIRC, before you get slapped with a heavy vehicle weight plate.
This brings in mandatory inspections, weigh station stops and log book requirements.
Probably add a CDL medical check up yearly if not an actual CDL. However if memory serves if you are getting home every night and not going more than a couple hundred miles some DOT stuff is not required.
It is usually better to be under 10,500 lbs GVWR so you don’t have to DOT it and have special licenses to drive them.
It could be as simple as tire load ranges. a 245/75r16 load range E tire tops out at 3000 lbs/tire, so that’s 6000 lbs/axle, so you’d only manage 12,000 lb with single tire axles like this thing has if you managed perfect weight distribution.
Class 3 goes all the way up to 14,000 lbs GVWR, and you don’t need a CDL until the vehicle GVWR exceeds 26,000 lbs, or if you’re towing more than 10,000 lbs (simplified, but that’s in the ballpark).
Well, I can certainly say I like the wheels.
WOW it actually exists? 😮
I like how it looks like a 90s interior with a giant screen tacked on