E-commerce giant Amazon has implemented important strategies regarding its operations, specifically related to the transportation sector, to not only improve efficiency, but also contribute to environmental protection.
To this end, the company has carried out a number of plans aimed at achieving zero net carbon emissions and helping to mitigate the terrible effects of climate change.
In this regard, Amazon has optimized and transformed their transportation network through technological innovations, improvements and alternative solutions to deliver orders to customers in a more sustainable way.
Electric Vehicle Investment
Amazon allocated large sums of its budget to acquire 100,000 electric delivery vans, to save millions of carbon metric tons per year. This is the largest order of electrified cars to date from manufacturer Rivian, just outside Detroit.
The acquisition is part of “The Climate Pledge,” Amazon’s plan to meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early. The commitment also calls for signatories to become net zero carbon emissions from their business by 2040.
Ross Rachey, Director of Global Fleet and Product at Amazon, emphasized that the goal is to build the most sustainable transportation fleet in the world, as well as the most functional, the highest performing and the safest.
Amazon’s transportation team spent 18 months evaluating a diverse range of electric vehicle options to reduce their carbon footprint. To move quickly, Rachey’s staff realized the best way forward was to chart their own path and create a new prototype custom-designed to meet the company’s needs.
The cars will reduce carbon emissions, raise driver safety standards, and optimize technology and design elements to create a best-in-class driver experience.
“We focused on driving efficiency throughout all aspects of the vehicle design: everything from cabin heating to driver ergonomics to powertrain engineering has been optimized in terms of time and energy,” explained R.J. Scaringe, CEO of Rivian.
Fleet Extension
In addition to these customized electric delivery vehicles, Amazon already has thousands of electrified cars driving around the world, delivering more than 20 million packages to customers in North America and Europe since 2020. An expansion has been made with an order for 1,800 electric vans from Mercedes-Benz, one of the signatories of The Climate Pledge.
Infrastructure
Amazon has not only focused on acquiring electric cars, but has also tackled the charging infrastructure issue that still looks like one of the weaknesses of these new technologies.
As the company has expanded the electric delivery fleet around the world, it has built up the supporting infrastructure for the vehicles and drivers.
To do this, they repurposed existing facilities with charging technology and added thousands of extra charging points, for use by Amazon’s partners in North America and Europe. There are more than 50 of the company’s delivery stations in those territories equipped for EV use, and all new delivery stations are designed with the necessary physical layout and electrical capacity to accommodate current and future needs.
Amazon also collaborates with public electric vehicle charging networks, so that drivers can refuel with clean energy when they are not on the network provided by the organization.
