Online retailer Amazon has announced plans to move to more electricity-powered deliveries using electric trucks and the rail network. The company claims the UK’s ‘largest-ever order of electric trucks’ as part of the initiative as it includes than 140 new electric Mercedes-Benz Truck eActros 600 trucks and eight Volvo FM battery electric trucks over the next 18 months.
The new electric trucks will haul trailers with products and packages to and from fulfilment centres, sort centres and delivery stations to customer doorsteps.
Amazon said around 20 of the Mercedes-Benz trucks will join Amazon’s transportation network as part of company’s participation in the UK Government’s Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator programme (ZEHID), with a proportion funded by the Department for Transport and coordinated in partnership with Innovate UK. Amazon has added eight Volvo FM Battery Electric trucks.
To support the expanded fleet, Amazon said it will install additional fast charging infrastructure at several UK sites, including 360kW electric charging points capable of charging the 40t Mercedes-Benz trucks from 20% to 80% in just over an hour. The new electric trucks will have a range of 310 miles (500km) on full charge.
Amazon said plans for rail deliveries at scale were also being introduced for the first time in the UK. Products will be loaded onto train carriages on the fully electric West Coast Main Line, which runs between Scotland and the Midlands.
Nicola Fyfe, EU VP of Amazon Logistics, said “The combination of our – and the UK’s – biggest ever order of eHGVs, the UK’s electric rail network now being used to transport customer packages, and the launch of restocking on the move on-foot deliveries, all alongside our partners’ fleet of electric vans and e-cargo bikes, will help us move more customer orders across our fulfilment network with zero exhaust emissions.”