The US corporation Amazon is investing billions in the electrification of its delivery truck fleet. Around one billion euros are to be invested in electric delivery vans, trucks and low-emission parcel centers across Europe over the next five years, as the world’s largest online retailer announced on Monday. Of this, 400 million euros are planned for Germany.
Amazon wants to speed up the achievement of its climate goals in order to become CO2-neutral by 2040. Amazon’s fleet of electric delivery vans in Europe is expected to more than triple from 3,000 to more than 10,000 vehicles by 2025.
The decarbonization of the transport network is one of the most challenging areas, said CEO Andrew Jassy (54) according to the announcement. “Reaching net-zero emissions here will require significant and sustained investment.”
Investments in charging stations and wind farms
The group did not provide any information on what percentage of the European delivery fleet is already being operated electrically. From the existing 3000 electric delivery vans, over 100 million packages were delivered last year, it was only said. The company also plans to purchase more than 1,500 electric trucks in the coming years to be used for shipments to the parcel centers.
In large cities, Amazon also wants to have parcels delivered more often on foot or by cargo bike in order to reduce the use of delivery vehicles. According to the company, there are currently such “micro hubs” for deliveries without four-wheeled vehicles in a good 20 European cities, and by 2025 there should be twice as many.
In addition, Amazon wants to invest in thousands of charging stations at locations across Europe and build green electricity power plants. A wind farm in the North Sea with a capacity of 350 megawatts is scheduled to go online in 2025.
Tests with delivery robots stopped
Amazon, on the other hand, is discontinuing the tests for the small delivery robots that drive on the sidewalk. The group had been carrying out the tests for three years, including in a residential area near Seattle. The development team has been disbanded and employees should be offered jobs in other areas of the group, an Amazon spokeswoman told Bloomberg news agency.
The vehicles looked like a large cooler on six wheels. Around 400 people worldwide worked on the project, Bloomberg reported, citing informed people. The idea of an autonomous delivery robot was to be examined further, but the previous concept had not worked, wrote the financial service.
Other companies have also been working on similar delivery robots in recent years – such as the pioneer Starship Technologies. So far, however, there has been no major breakthrough for the technology.
The robots are mostly used to a limited extent in individual areas as well as on company or university campuses. Problems include, for example, robots sometimes getting stuck on sidewalks and needing to be picked up.