SUMMARY
The electric rickshaws will operate in Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad and other cities by 2025
Amazon is working with several Indian original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to build a fleet of electric vehicles
Amazon plans to eliminate single-use plastic from its fulfilment network by June 2020
In a bid to reduce carbon emission, Amazon, on Monday (January 20), announced that it is looking forward to including 10K electric vehicles (EVs) for its delivery facility by 2025.
In a Twitter post, the founder and CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos showed a glimpse of the fully electric, zero-carbon rickshaws that would hit the Indian roads soon. These electric vehicles will operate in over 20 cities, including Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Nagpur and Coimbatore among others.
Hey, India. We’re rolling out our new fleet of electric delivery rickshaws. Fully electric. Zero carbon. #ClimatePledge pic.twitter.com/qFXdZOsY4y
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) January 20, 2020
Amazon in a press statement said that it has been working with several original equipment manufacturers (OEM) in India to build a fleet of electric vehicles (both three-wheelers and four-wheelers). The company did not reveal the names of OEMs to Inc42 due to confidentiality reasons.
Akhil Saxena, vice president for customer fulfilment, Asia Pacific and emerging markets at Amazon, said that this decision came as an internal milestone for becoming an energy-efficient leader in the industry. “We will continue to invest in electrification of our delivery fleet, thereby reducing our dependence on non-renewable resources,” added Saxena.
These electric vehicles are in addition to the company’s global commitment of one lakh electric vehicle fleet by 2030, which was announced in September 2019 as part of Climate Pledge signed by Amazon. The Climate Pledge calls on signatories to be zero carbon across their businesses by 2040. Amazon signed the agreement ten years early of Paris Accord’s goal of 2050. Amazon then said that this decision of adopting electric vehicles will help Amazon in saving four million metric tons of carbon per year.
This was also reportedly mentioned by Bezos during his recent visit to India at the Smbhav event held in New Delhi. In addition to this, Bezos said that Amazon will eliminate single-use plastic from its fulfilment network by June 2020.
The Indian Electric Vehicle Market Is Here To Stay
Recently, a lot of companies have started using electric vehicles in their delivery fleets, including companies like Zomato, Swiggy, BigBasket, and Grofers among others. The need to switch to electric vehicles comes as a necessary step to reduce the carbon emission. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) report, 90% of the world’s population lives in places where air quality is poor or exceeds particle matter limits (PM2.5 and PM10).
Meanwhile, the Indian government is also pushing for the mass adoption of electric mobility in the country, particularly for two-wheelers and three-wheelers. The government has set up faster adoption and manufacturing of hybrid and electric vehicles (FAME) policy to promote this. Under the policy, the government proposed to invest INR 10K Cr over the next three years to support 10 lakh two-wheelers, five lakh three-wheelers (electric rickshaws) and 55 thousand four-wheelers, respectively.
The Indian electric rickshaw market is currently growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.9%, is on the verge of disruption. The market is expected to reach 935.5 thousand units by 2024. The growth is said to be propelled by rising environmental awareness and implementation of stringent regulations to curb environmental degradation.
