The market for battery-powered delivery vehicles and equipment has so much potential that General Motors is forming a new business unit to serve it, a move that lifted the automaker’s stock to a multiyear high. The first product for the new venture called BrightDrop will be an electric-powered wheeled pallet that will take goods from the warehouse to trucks and from trucks to destinations. Then GM will roll out a clean electric delivery van. The pallet, named EP1, will go on sale early this year, with the EV600 van on the roads late in the year with 500 going to FedEx, the company’s first customer. BrightDrop also will offer software and operational support for delivery businesses such as location services, battery status and remote unlocking. But GM doesn’t intend to get into the delivery business, said Pamela Fletcher, GM’s vice president of global innovation. “One thing […]