SUN Mobility plans to integrate its battery swapping technology with an expanded deployment of electric 3-wheelers (3W) for Amazon’s transportation and logistics services.
Amazon India is working together with SUN Mobility, a leading provider of energy infrastructure and services for electric vehicles (EVs), to expand the deployment of EVs integrated with battery swapping technology for its transportation and logistics services. These EVs will contribute to Amazon India’s commitment to adding 10,000 electric vehicles to its India delivery fleet by 2025, announced in 2020. The company continues to work with local OEMs like SUN Mobility to build its EV fleet.
Leveraging SUN Mobility’s MaaS (mobility-as-a-service) offering, the deployment will provide Amazon India and its delivery service partners (DSPs) with a state-of-the-art electric mobility solution that is integrated with smart batteries, along with access to a wide network of SWAP POINTS™ (‘SWAP POINT™’ refer to the location where a SUN Mobility’s battery swapping station is deployed). Currently, SUN Mobility is setting up its SWAP POINTS™ across its customer locations including Amazon warehouses in major cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, and Hyderabad.
With battery swapping technology, the discharged battery of EVs can be rapidly swapped for a fully charged unit, removing the delay involved in recharging. This helps to address issues such as range anxiety and the requirement of setting up dedicated charging infrastructure which is constrained by space and cost.
The expanded deployment will further bolster Amazon’s efforts to implement more sustainable practices in its operations, as well as contribute to its Climate Pledge goals – a commitment to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. As part of an existing pilot program, SUN Mobility had already successfully deployed over 100 loaders powered by swappable batteries with Amazon India’s delivery network partners for rapid deliveries, which the two companies now plan to replicate in more metro cities and in other operational areas. SUN Mobility’s offering will enable a high EV fleet uptime for Amazon’s network partners via two-minute battery swaps, supporting Amazon’s expanding logistics network without being constrained by charging infrastructure.
Commenting on the deployment, Abhinav Singh, Director – Customer Fulfilment, Supply Chain and Global Specialty Fulfilment, Amazon India said: “The collaboration with SUN Mobility represents another step in our journey towards reducing carbon emissions and the environmental impact of delivery operations. We will continue to invest in the electrification of our delivery fleet as we work towards the goal of adding 10,000 EVs across partner platforms to our fleet by 2025. With the government also encouraging the development of sustainable and innovative business models for ‘Battery or Energy as a Service’, we are committed to supporting India’s progress in the e-mobility industry to achieve its environmental sustainability goals.”
Chetan Maini, Co-Founder, and Chairman of SUN Mobility said, “We are delighted by the opportunity of collaborating with an e-commerce giant like Amazon India. We believe that this deployment will enable us to tangibly impact the rapidly growing e-commerce and delivery segment by making ‘refueling’ of electric vehicles faster, cheaper and more convenient for fleet operators. Our comprehensive MaaS offering will offer robust and supportive infrastructure that will cater to the new mobility paradigm, making India a global differentiator and a leader in this transformation of mobility.”
SUN Mobility aims to onboard over a million vehicles by 2025, the accomplishment of which will be accelerated through its MaaS offering. It has already commenced the deployment of its solutions to eCommerce and goods delivery players across major cities such as Delhi NCR, Bangalore, and Chandigarh and plans to further expand to other cities across the country. The company has onboarded hundreds of such vehicles across multiple fleet operators and currently has a robust order book to deploy thousands more.
About Amazon India
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth’s Best Employer, and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
About SUN Mobility
SUN Mobility is a global leader in providing energy mobility solutions and services to the transportation sector enabling electric vehicles to be refueled in a faster, cheaper, and more convenient way; thereby, making mass migration to sustainable, pollution-free future possible. Founded in 2017, it is a joint venture between SUN Group and Maini Group, pioneers in areas of electric mobility and clean energy. The company is led by Chetan Maini, previously founder of Reva now Mahindra Electric, Uday Khemka, Vice Chairman of SUN Group and Ajay Goel, Co-Founder & Executive Director at SUN Mobility. The organization is working with fleet operators, shared mobility providers, cities and automotive OEMs across all platforms including 2/3 wheelers and buses to challenge the status quo with an economical, scalable, and smarter way forward. The company has successfully deployed 75 Swap Points™ in 15+ cities in India, resulting in 700K+ rides and powering 15 million kms in the country. For more information, please visit: www.sunmobility.com
