Flipkart vows to convert all its fleet to electric vehicles by 2030
Walmart-owned Flipkart on Tuesday said it will transition completely to the consumption of electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030 as part of its sustainability efforts, and has joined the Climate Group’s global electric mobility initiative, EV100.
EV100 brings together companies focused on accelerating the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) and making electric transport the brand new normal by 2030.
As a part of this commitment and also to support wider adoption of EVs, Flipkart is investing in a phased integration of electric vehicles into the entire fleet (directly owned or leased corporate fleets) by 2030, Flipkart Head (Sustainability and Social Responsibility) Mahesh Pratap Singh told PTI.
“This will be done through placing requirements in service contracts, installing charging infrastructure near its 1,400 supply chain premises, conducting awareness programs and incentivising delivery executives towards the utilization of electric vehicles,” he said but declined to touch upon the investments to be undertaken.
In June this past year, Flipkart had said it aims to displace nearly 40 per cent of delivery vans of Ekart (its logistics unit) with electric vehicles by March 2020, and that it had been running pilots in Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
“We have seen great traction within the last 12 months roughly. We now have EVs in 4-5 cities, there are pilots running in state capitals. We've 8-10 times more EVs on road than what we had this past year. A combination of all these has given us the confidence in order to take the pledge to go 100 per cent EVs,” he said.
Asked if the business has been able to meet up the prospective of 40 per cent announced previously, Singh said: “we are making firm progress, it may be a bit off due to issues like COVID-19, but we are on track”.
Flipkart has recently deployed EVs in Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Bhubaneswar. Pilots have already been conducted in Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Lucknow and deployment will get started in September.
In the last year, Flipkart spent some time working towards creating a broad network of ecosystem partners across charging providers, regulators, policy makers, skill development agencies, aggregators and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to focus on various areas.
These include designing and the manufacturing of EVs optimised for e-commerce while supporting market demand for EVs to emerge as a mainstream mobility solution, Singh said.
The Indian government has been promoting make use of electric vehicles (EVs) in India with an objective of reaching 30 per cent EV penetration by 2030.
“As a homegrown company, we always pride ourselves in making e-commerce more inclusive, progressive and impactful for all our stakeholders, which also contains communities and the earth...
“Our commitment to the Climate Group’s EV100 initiative fits in with this larger vision of environmental sustainability and allows us to learn from the most forward-thinking global perspectives within the EV100 ecosystem,” Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart Group, said in a statement.
With Flipkart’s scale, scope and intense concentrate on sustainability agenda, the company believes it could play a significant role in not simply fast-tracking the adoption of electric vehicles but also making clean mobility mainstream, he added.
Divya Sharma, India Executive Director of Climate Group, said Flipkart will play a substantial role in fostering innovation in technology and exchanging knowledge on e-mobility within its global network of committed businesses.
“To help with making swift emissions cuts and improve quality of air for the long-term, we urge more Indian companies to check out suit, sending a powerful signal of support to policymakers wishing to visit a faster roll-out of EVs,” she added.
Within the EV100 programme, Flipkart will also get an chance to study from over 70 forward-looking companies from around the world.
Founded in 2004, Climate Group is an international non-profit organisation. Under the EV100 programme, it is working with companies across the globe to accelerate the transition to EVs.
The transport sector may be the fastest-growing contributor to climate change, accounting for 23 per cent of global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions and electric transport offers a significant solution in cutting millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year, in addition to curbing transport related air and noise pollution, in line with the Climate Group.
