Amazon announced that it has doubled its fleet of custom-designed Rivian electric delivery vehicles (EDVs) to a total of 10,000 vehicles, all making last-mile deliveries in 1,800 US cities. The company now operates one of the largest fleets of EDVs in the US.
At an event yesterday in Seattle, the e-commerce giant announced that it doubled the size of its electric vehicle fleet from July, with plans to have at least 100,000 electric delivery vans on the road by 2030.
Three years ago, Amazon enlisted Rivian, in which Amazon holds a stake, to help design a new custom vehicle, with a host of specific features and a range of up to 150 miles. The fleet officially launched in the summer of 2022. Since the company has expanded its electric fleet to Europe, with plans to bring 300 vans to Germany, joining what the company says are thousands of electric vans already in operation on the continent.
Of course, when you’re talking about a behemoth like Amazon, you’re talking about massive, global scale – the company says that it’s EDVs have delivered more than 260 millions packages to customers, with more than 200,000 drivers going through training on operating the Rivian vehicles.
Further, Amazon is also working with Swedish truck giant Volvo Trucks to bring 20 heavy-duty electric models to the company in Germany, to replace its fleet of diesel trucks.
The partnership with Rivian is part of the company’s commitment to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040, which is 10 years ahead of the Paris climate goals. Amazon has invested $700 million into the project, all in hopes of making some progress and turning around its dreadful record on global climate emissions. For the record, last year the company reported for the first time a drop in carbon emissions by 0.4 per cent – from 71.54 to 71.27 million metric tons over the year.
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