India’s Flipkart said on Wednesday that Walmart-owned e-commerce giant would achieve 100% conversion to electric mobility in the next 10 years, adding that it will deploy more than 25,000 electric vehicles in its supply chain by 2030. The Bangalore-headquartered company said it has collaborated with top EV manufacturers including Hero Electric, Mahindra Electric and Piaggio to build vehicles for the first and last mile delivery fleet across the country.
Rival Amazon said it had collaborated with Mahindra Electric to develop “hundreds” of electric three-wheelers in India, a day after the announcement. The American e-commerce giant last year promised to deploy 10,000 electric vehicles in the country by 2025. Flipkart said its electric fleet would include two-wheelers, three-wheelers and four-wheelers, all of which will design and assembled in India. The company said it has already started deploying two-wheeler and three-wheeler electric vehicles in “multiple locations” in India, including Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Guwahati.
In recent years, New Delhi has pushed for the replacement of petrol and diesel vehicles with environmentally friendly electric vehicles in India. Reuters reported in 2019 that the Indian government planned to order ride-hailing companies such as Ola and Uber to convert 40% of their fleet to electronics by April 2026.
“Electrification of the logistics fleet is a key part of Flipkart’s larger sustainable goals and in line with our commitment to the Climate Group’s EV100 initiative,” said Amitesh Jha, SVP of Ekart and Marketplace, in a statement.
“In this journey to fully electrify our logistics fleet by 2030, we will support and work with top local players in supporting the necessary infrastructural developments as well as procuring and deploying electric vehicles. We understand the relevance of electrical mobility in achieving both business and sustainable goals and are committed to paving the way for further adoption in EVs across the country, “he added.
The company says that over the past year they have worked to build a network of ecosystem partners across charging suppliers, skills development agencies, aggregators, and core equipment manufacturers.
