It’s not 100,000 electric delivery vans from new car company Rivian, but Amazon is adding nearly 2,000 new Mercedes vans to its fleet. Instead of diesel or gas-powered vans, however, every vehicle making Amazon deliveries from the German carmaker will be fully electric.
Amazon recently announced a partnership with Mercedes-Benz to incorporate 1,800 new delivery vans into its delivery service across Europe by the end of 2020. Those vans include 1,200 eSprinter vans and 600 eVito vans.
The electric Sprinter van is the newest commercial electric vehicle from Mercedes and is a bigger version of its eVito van, which has 93-mile range. Rivian’s e-vans are supposed to start delivering for Amazon in 2021. Its first two vehicles, an electric pickup truck and SUV with 400-mile range, still haven’t arrived yet.
Amazon has committed to using more clean energy, so in 2019 it invested in the U.S-based EV startup Rivian and promised to electrify more of its delivery fleet in the U.S. and beyond.
Amazon also established The Climate Pledge to encourage companies to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2040. Mercedes, a company that still sells many internal combustion engine vehicles, signed onto the pledge in August. By the end of 2020, Mercedes will have five all-electric vehicles and 20 plug-in hybrids available in its lineup.