Amazon has started operating its first electric truck fleet in Kentucky, according to Spectrum News 1.
The rollout of the Rivian-made electric trucks at the Florence shipping hub is part of a company-wide effort to reduce pollution. The cost of these upgrades has totaled over $1 billion and added 20,000 electric vehicles to its U.S. fleet.
This is being complemented by a rollout of electric semi trucks for long-distance delivery. Investment in solar energy generation, plastics research, and packaging reduction are just a few other avenues the retail behemoth is taking in sustainability.
Electric vehicles are a big part of the future of transportation. Medium- and heavy-duty trucks generate about 23% of U.S. transportation emissions. Cutting gas out of the equation means reducing the incidence of destructive weather patterns, ocean warming, and loss of sea ice.
"You don't hear anything. It's very quiet. And in the other vans, it would be very bumpy and rough sounds," said driver Hannah Jones of the new vehicles, per Spectrum News 1.
Despite the environmental benefits of electric truck deployment, Amazon still faces challenges. Its massive data centers tap into polluting energy sources, and it has relied on offsets rather than renewable power to meet its net-zero commitments.
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Amazon also enables the sale of just about any physical good someone could need. Manufacturing generates a large chunk of global pollution, but Amazon's Scope 3 reporting only includes goods made under its brand. Meanwhile, other retailers include outside manufacturing in their accounting. Even for its own products, Amazon is being hit with a class action lawsuit for falsely claiming its branded toilet paper is eco-friendly.
Still, Amazon's staff take its net-zero goals seriously.
"We're obviously a big company and we have very big goals," said Florence site lead Bryan Dzialo, per Spectrum News 1. "One of those is to be net zero carbon emissions by 2040, and given the scale of our kind of logistics operation, that's a big undertaking. So having the EVs roll out is a big part of that."
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