Amazon India has announced its plans to deploy around 1,000 electric trucks, which have been developed in collaboration with Eicher Trucks and Buses. The move comes in as support to expand Amazon Now’s operations across the country. The deployment is expected to be one of India’s largest dedicated electric truck fleets in the e-commerce and quick commerce sectors.
As a part of this collaboration, VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV) has developed the Eicher Pro-X, a compact electric truck which is purpose-built to facilitate high-frequency intra-city operations. These trucks will move goods between Amazon’s fulfilment hubs (situated outside of the cities) to the micro fulfilment centres, which are located closer to the customers.
Reportedly, Amazon India has already deployed 50 of these trucks and plans to scale up the fleet to over 1,000 trucks by 2028. For the daily operations, these trucks are expected to cover 100-180 km and support multiple trips between the facilities. The trucks also claim to have a fast-charging time of around 50 minutes. The fleet will be deployed across key cities starting with Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru and Mumbai. However, the company has recently announced its expansion of Amazon Now services to over 100 cities in the country, including Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kochi, Mangalore and Vizag.
Amazon has been an early adopter of electric mobility in India, as the company has deployed over 12,500 EVs across more than 500 cities. This step is not new for Amazon as the e-commerce giant has already worked with multiple EV manufacturers in the US and elsewhere to bring electrification to both last-mile and middle-mile transportation.
