Amazon India to ply 10,000 electric delivery vehicles by 2025
E-commerce giant Amazon India will deploy 10,000 electric vehicles (EVs) in its delivery fleet by 2025, the company said on Monday. "The expansion of our electric vehicle fleet to 10,000 vehicles by 2025 is an integral milestone in our journey to become an energy efficient leader in the industry," said Amazon Asia Pacific and Emerging Markets Customer Fulfilment vice president Akhil Saxena in a statement.
Saxena said Amazon is dedicated to building a supply chain model of operations which will minimise adverse environmental impact as it aims to decrease its dependence on non-renewable sources.
Amazon committed to this green initiative after successfully conducting pilots runs across multiple cities in 2019, enabling the company to establish a large scalable and long term EV fleet.
The 10,000 Indian EV commitment is in addition to the global commitment of deploying one lakh electric vehicles in the e-tailer's delivery fleet by 2030, announced as part of the company's Climate Pledge.
Plying electric vehicles for delivering e-commerce orders, the e-tailer aims to slash carbon emissions and environmental impact of its operations.
The fleet of 10,000 EVs will include three-wheelers as well as four-wheelers, designed and manufactured in India, even as the company is working with several Indian manufacturers to build the electric fleet.
"Significant progress in the Indian e-mobility industry in the last few years has led to advanced technology, and superior motor and battery components," said Amazon.
It also listed Government of India's focus to encourage electric vehicle adoption by issuing policies such as Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles in India (FAME) for propelling Amazon's EV vision in the country.
In 2020, Amazon's electric delivery vehicles will operate in 20 Indian cities, including Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Nagpur and Coimbatore to gradually add more cities.
In September 2019, the company announced its plan to eliminate single use plastic packaging material at Amazon India's fulfilment centres and by June 2020 it aims to reduce overall packaging waste.
"Amazon India has also invested in energy conservation and solar power generation in its fulfilment and sort centres, with advanced building energy management systems, and water conservation methods to make operations more sustainable," the company said.
According to Amazon, the company was the first signatory of the Climate Pledge, promising to groom the e-tailer to be net zero carbon by 2040 across its businesses, almost 10 years ahead of Paris Accord's 2050 goal.
Joining the Climate Pledge and endeavouring to decarbonise on a faster time horizon will enable the signatories to play a crucial role in stimulating investment and development of low carbon products and services.
Building 10,000 electric delivery fleet by 2022 and one lakh such vehicles by 2030, saving four million metric tons of carbon per year by 2030 is part of Amazon's Climate Pledge.
