Amazon India To Include 10,000 Electric Vehicles In Delivery Fleet By 2025
Amazon’s rival, Walmart’s Flipkart had in June last year said it aims to replace 40% of its delivery vans with EVs by March.
Amazon India Pvt. Ltd.'s on Monday said its delivery fleet will include 10,000 electric vehicles by 2025.
Amazon's rival, Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart had in June last year said it aims to replace 40 percent of its delivery vans with EVs by March. The e-commerce firm has deployed the electric fleet in cities like Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
Amazon, in a statement, said it rolled out EVs in several cities across India in 2019 and is now expanding this initiative across the country. It said that learnings from the pilot project have helped the company create scalable and long-term EV variants to build a 10,000 EV-strong delivery fleet.
The announcement comes days after the U.S.-based e-commerce firm announced investment of $1 billion in India for digitising small and medium businesses, and creation of one million jobs by 2025.
Also Read: India Snubs $1 Billion Amazon Investment As Resentment Grows
"The fleet of 10,000 EVs—including three-wheeler and four-wheeler vehicles—has been designed and manufactured by original equipment manufacturers in India," Amazon said in its statement. In 2020, these vehicles will operate in over 20 cities of India, including Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Nagpur and Coimbatore, among others.
These EVs are in addition to the global commitment of 1 lakh EVs in the delivery fleet by 2030 announced in the Climate Pledge signed by Amazon.
As part of the pledge, Amazon announced its plans to introduce 10,000 EVs into its delivery fleet globally in 2022 and one lakh vehicles by 2030, saving 4 million metric tonnes of carbon per year by 2030.
Amazon India said it has been working with several Indian OEMs to build a fleet of EVs that ensure sustainable and safe deliveries of customer orders. The government's focus to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles in the country, and steps towards setting up of charging infrastructure with the FAME II policy, has helped the company accelerate and chart its vision for EVs in India, it added.
"At Amazon India, we are committed to building a supply chain that will minimise the environmental impact of our operations," Akhil Saxena, vice president for customer fulfilment (Asia Pacific and Emerging Markets) at Amazon, said in a statement. He added that the company will continue to invest in electrification of its delivery fleet, thereby reducing its dependence on non-renewable resources.
In September last year, Amazon India had announced its plan to eliminate single-use plastic in its packaging from its fulfilment centres by June 2020.