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By Nick Carey and Jeffrey Dastin
(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc said Friday that it had ordered 1,800 electric pickup trucks from Mercedes-Benz for its European delivery fleet, as part of the online retailer’s plans to operate a carbon-neutral business until 2040.
Most electric cars in Daimler AG’s car and van department will enter service this year, the company said, adding that it has ordered 1,200 of Mercedes-Benz’s largest eSprinter models and six hundred medium-sized eVitos.
The order is the largest to date for Mercedes-Benz cars and includes 800 vans for Germany and 500 for the UK.
However, it is overshadowed by Amazon’s order of 100,000 electric delivery trucks from Rivian Automotive LLC, a startup in which he has invested.
Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said in a statement that the daimler deal was a component of the retailer’s “journey to build the world’s highest sustainable transportation fleet.”
On Friday, Mercedes-Benz joined The Climate Pledge, presented through Amazon last year, which asks signatories to be net of zero carbon in their business until 2040. The automaker has said in the past that it aims to have a carbon-neutral fleet through 2039.
In 2018, Amazon has Mercedes’ largest visitor of non-electric Sprinter pickup trucks, securing 20,000 cars for delivery providers.
“In the future, we are prioritizing the incorporation of electric vehicles,” Ross Rachey, Amazon’s director of fleets and products, told Reuters for the last kilometer delivery.
Other deliveries are pushing for more electric fleets. In January, United Parcel Service Inc. said it ordered 10,000 delivery trucks to the British company Arrival Ltd.
Daimler’s rivals are also running to put electric vans on the market. Ford Motor Co plans an all-electric edition of its North American Transit pickup truck in 2022, and General Motors Co plans to begin production of an electric van by 2021.
(Report through Nick Carey; Editing through Tom Brown)