Amazon is buying a fleet of all-electric vans from Mercedes-Benz

Logistics companies from around the world are starting to look at electric powertrains for their delivery vehicles in order to reduce costs.

Now Amazon is getting on board with a fleet of all-electric vans from Mercedes-Benz.

Mercedes-Benz has been updating its van lineup with all-electric options lately.

The eSprinter, an all-electric version of their popular Sprinter van with 150 km of range and a 1000 kg payload capacity, was unveiled earlier this year.

Last year, Mercedes-Benz also electrified the Vito by launching the eVito, a mid-size van with a 41.4 kWh battery pack for a range “around 150 km” (93 miles), according to the German automaker.

With a 84 kW electric motor, the van can achieve a top speed of up to 120 km/h (74 mph).

That’s the van that Mercedes-Benz announced today will be used in Amazon’s fleet.

The German automaker wrote in a press release:

“By the end of the year, Amazon Logistics will have 100 eVitos in its fleet at its Bochum and Düsseldorf locations. Furthermore, Amazon and Mercedes-Benz Vans are working with other partners on a wide-ranging operator concept for the Bochum facility. Alongside the charging infra­structure, this covers parking space management and the automated capture of vehicle status.”

It’s going to be Mercedes-Benz’s biggest deployment of its new electric vans after their 1,500-all-electric van fleet for Germany’s largest independent logistics firm, Hermes.

Those are fleets of significant sizes in the still early stages of the electrification of transport for delivery.

It’s why Mercedes-Benz is working closely with those customers on adapting the vehicles to their fleets and the required infrastructure.

They call this ‘Customer Co-Creation’. The company explains:

“This includes, for instance, advice on vehicle selection, support with tools like the eVAN Ready app and overall consideration of the total cost of ownership. Also critical for potential users of the eVito and eSprinter is the analysis of the organisational and technical circumstances at the premises of commercial customers. Ultimately, the integration of an intelligent charging infrastructure concept lays the foundation for sustained competitiveness and for conserving resources with a commercial fleet.”

Daimler has deployed similar efforts across other parts of its push for electrification in order to introduce its customers to electric vehicles.

For example, Daimler wants to deliver fleets of its new eCascadia electric trucks to partners by end of the year in order to help flesh out applications for the new class 8 all-electric truck.

Electrek’s Take

If you operate a fleet of delivery vans, you need to start looking at all-electric options for your next vehicles.

Options used to be very limited until very recently. So far Nissan owned the market with its e-NV200 all-electric van, but now plenty of other vehicles have launched in the past year.

The segment is about to get a lot more competitive. In December, VW started deliveries of its new all-electric eCrafter van for a customer test fleet.

In the US, Workhorse also recently started delivering its own electric van model and the new California-based startup Chanje is also entering the market with a larger all-electric van.

Now as we reported today, Mercedes-Benz Vans also has several options.

The availability is still limited for several of those vans, but it’s certainly something worth to look into for your own market.