Amazon announced on Monday that it will invest more than €1 billion ($970 million USD at current exchange rates) into its European fleet. At the heart of the investment will be the addition of electric delivery vans and trucks.
With that, Amazon will more than triple the size its fleet of electric vehicles in Europe, which currently stands at 3,000. By 2025, the American company expects to have more than 10,000 electric vehicles on the road, reports Reuters.
In addition to electric vans for last-mile deliveries, the company plans to buy more than 1,500 trucks for middle-mile shipments to package hubs in the coming years. Mercedes has invested heavily in getting larger electric trucks onto Europe’s roads and partnered with Amazon to test their use on public streets.
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In addition to the electric vehicles, Amazon will invest on installing chargers at its facilities across Europe. It will also double its European network of “micro-mobility” hubs that can currently be found in 20 cities across the continent.
The €1 billion that Amazon has planned for this EV expansion will be spent over the next five years and will accelerate its drive to become a net-zero carbon company. The company says it also wants to spur innovation across the transportation industry.
In addition to those goals, Amazon may have been spurred on by the recent European Union decision to phase out internal combustion vehicles by 2035. The bloc will only allow the sale of zero emissions vehicles by 2035 and has mandated that 50 percent of all new vans sold in 2030 be ZEVs.
In America, Amazon has partnered with Rivian, which is building an all-electric delivery vehicle for it there. Although it’s unclear if Amazon will use those same vehicles as part of this announcement, Rivian did recently agree to create a joint venture with Mercedes to start building electric vans in Europe.
