Amazon has announced plans to invest more than €1bn over the next five years to electrify and decarbonise its freight network across Europe.
The work will see Amazon triple its zero-emission fleet to “at least” 10,000 electric delivery vans, up on 3,000 currently, and add more than 1,500 electric heavy goods vehicles (eHGVs).
Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, said: “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.
“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.”
The e-commerce giant said it will invest in thousands of chargers across its European facilities, which it hopes will allow the company and its partners to improve fleet charging hardware.
Long haul transportation is hard to decarbonise due to the size and weight of the trucks and trailers, Amazon said.
Current infrastructure including charging points is “limited”, it added. The firm currently has five eHGVs operational in the UK and will have 20 on the road in Germany by the end of this year.
Amazon has a target to power its operations using 100% renewable energy by 2025.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk has announced production of Tesla’s fully electrified logistics vehicles known as the Tesla Semi Truck is underway, with the first due to be delivered to PepsiCo in early December.
Musk said the vehicles will have a 500 mile range and will use less than 2kWh per mile of energy consumption.
Pepsi states on its website that 15 of the trucks are expected to be deployed by the end of 2022.