Amazon’s investment is intended to help spark innovation in zero-emission vehicles and encourage the deployment of public charging infrastructure, helping enable the entire industry to reduce emissions.
The investment is also intended to drive innovation across the industry and encourage more public charging infrastructure, which will help enable the broader transportation industry to more quickly reduce emissions.
Amazon aims to become net-zero carbon by 2040.
“Our transportation network is one of the most challenging areas of our business to decarbonise, and to achieve net-zero carbon will require a substantial and sustained investment,” said Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO.
“Deploying thousands of electric vans, long-haul trucks, and bikes will help us shift further away from traditional fossil fuels—and hopefully, further encourage transportation and automotive industries in Europe and around the world to continue scaling and innovating, as we will have to work together to reach our climate goals.”
Amazon has more than 3,000 electric vans delivering packages to customers across Europe and, with the investment announced today, expects to grow its fleet to more than 10,000 by 2025.
Amazon has launched micromobility hubs in more than 20 cities across Europe, including London, and expects to double that figure by the end of 2025. Micromobility hubs are smaller, centrally-located delivery stations. In Europe’s traditionally dense cities, the hubs enable Amazon to operate new delivery methods, such as e-cargo bikes and on-foot deliveries, to bring packages to customers more sustainably. Micromobility hubs take traditional delivery vans off the road, which alleviates traffic congestion in city centres and improves air quality.
In addition to these new vans and micro-mobility hubs and vehicles, Amazon will also invest in thousands of chargers across its European facilities. The investment will allow the company and its partners to improve fleet charging hardware.
Amazon today has five eHGVs on the road in the UK (supplied by DAF), and will have 20 on the road in Germany by the end of this year.
Amazon is using its size and scale to help spark the scaling of eHGV production so Amazon and others can more quickly transition away from diesel trucks. With the investment announced today, Amazon expects to purchase and roll out more than 1,500 eHGVs in its European fleet, including more than 700 in the UK in the coming years.
To power its eHGVs, Amazon will build hundreds of specialised fast chargers across its European facilities, allowing the company to charge the vehicles in approximately two hours.
Amazon is on a path to powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, and, in 2021, the company reached 85%. This applies to all Amazon operations such as data centres, logistics facilities, physical stores, and corporate offices, including on-site charging points.