Amazon building major EV charging park in Germany

The e-commerce giant Amazon has announced its largest deployment of electric mobility in Germany to date. The distribution centre in Essen has been equipped with 340 charging stations and operates more than 150 electric delivery vehicles every day.

Currently, eight of eleven delivery partners in Essen have converted their fleets to electric transporters, Amazon reports. A total of 150 electric vans are on the road in Essen. In addition, two other delivery partners in the Bochum distribution centre operate 40 electric vehicles.

The contract for the charging infrastructure was awarded to LUEG BaseCamp GmbH, which offers vehicle rental, claims management and repair, parking space rental and charging infrastructure at the site. Martijn Storm, the spokesperson for the Executive Board Fahrzeug-Werke LUEG AG, describes this approach as “one of the most innovative and promising business models of our LUEG Group”.

“We are pleased to expand our cooperation with BaseCamp – a program that gives small and medium-sized delivery companies in Essen access to a turnkey solution on a large scale by providing vehicles and services”, says Robert Viegers, Director of Amazon Logistics in Germany. Viegers also refers to the 100,000 electric delivery vans that Amazon has ordered from Rivian. It is still unclear, however, whether the Rivian vans are primarily intended for use in the USA or whether they will also be on the road in Europe and Germany. “As we expand our network, we ensure that our distribution centres are prepared for the deployment of electromobility and that our partners have access to attractive offers for building their electric fleets,” summarizes Robert Viegers.

In January, Amazon announced that 60 charging points had been installed in the Munich-Daglfing distribution centre – big news at the time, but compared to Essen, the Munich solution appears in a different light. While 40 StreetScooters and ten Mercedes eVito are used in Bavaria, Amazon has made no mention of which models will be used in Essen.

Source: Press release via email.