Flipkart Promises To Replace 40% Of Its Delivery Vehicles With EVs By 2020

The central government is trying to increase the use of electric vehicles in India by requiring logistics firms and cab aggregators to deploy a fleet of EVs.

Although the initiative hasn’t been implemented yet, Flipkart, the biggest e-commerce portal in the country has promised to follow the plan.

On June 27, Flipkart announced that by March 2020, 40% of its delivery vehicles will be replaced by electric vehicles. The company has already carried out a pilot run with electric motorcycles and electric vans in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Delhi. Flipkart aims to deploy as much as 160 electric vans by the end of 2019 since the pilot runs involving emission-free vehicles have yielded positive results. The carbon emissions from delivery vehicles would be reduced by more than 50%.

Flipkart will also set up a corresponding charging infrastructure, a necessary step if the country wants to deploy EVs on a large scale. Flipkart will install the charging stations at the company’s operational hubs.

At the moment, the e-commerce giant deploys 30 e-bikes in Bengaluru, 10 e-vans in New Delhi, and 8 e-vans in Hyderabad.

Flipkart is proud to be the country’s first e-commerce platform to use a non-emission delivery fleet. The company is reportedly in discussion with some manufacturers to find the most suitable EV for its delivery operations.

Similar to Flipkart, other cab aggregators are also planning to deploy electric vehicles. Ratan Tata recently funded Ola to set up a fleet of EVs with battery swapping models and sufficient charging infrastructure. Earlier, Ola had worked with Hyundai India to acquire several electric cars.

Food tech Swiggy has also been testing out EVs in its delivery fleet across 10 major cities. Just like Flipkart, the company’s goal is to reduce its logistics cost, around 40% per delivery and of course, go emission free.