Amazon recently partnered with Rivian to boost the sustainability of its delivery fleet with 100,000 electric vans. They are also continuously pushing forward with their sustainability efforts when it comes to delivering packages to customers, such as rolling out more than 10,000 of these new electric Rivian delivery vans in the U.S. last year.
As such, we have analysed the sustainability of the vast fleets of other major delivery companies. We can also share what their fleets could look like when they are fully electrified and how much each company will save in emissions by turning their fleets green.
Key findings
- DHL has the current most sustainable fleet
- FedEx has the least energy-efficient fleet
- USPS could save nearly 1 million tonnes in emissions per year if they turned their fleet green
- Energy saved by USPS converting their fleet could power New Orleans
- Royal Mail could save 200,000 tonnes of emissions with net zero commitment
Are Amazon leading the way?
Amazon has already begun making great strides when it comes to moving towards a more sustainable fleet. Their partnership with Rivian has been their biggest announcement to date, providing Amazon with 100,000 electric delivery vehicles, expected to be on the road by 2030.
But Amazon isn’t looking to wait for 2030 before making changes. They’ve already rolled out 10,000 new electric delivery vans in the United States and delivered 300 new vans to Germany to join thousands more already in operation in Europe. They are also further expanding their electric cargo bike fleets across the UK in Manchester, London and Glasgow.
So, how do the leading courier companies compare when it comes to their fleets?
DHL ranked as the most efficient courier fleet, with 24% already running on electric
DHL has around 119,000 road vehicles. Despite being the third largest courier company, with a market cap of $57.59 billion/£45.25 billion, and third for overall fleet vehicles behind USPS and UPS, they boast the highest number of electric delivery vehicles in their current fleet, with a total number of 29,000 now operational. This equates to close to a quarter of their entire fleet (24%).
Thanks to DHL’s push to be more eco-friendly, they are currently saving the equivalent of 6,609 garbage trucks of waste being sent to landfills instead of recycled (133,690 tonnes). If they were to convert the rest of their fleet, they’d up that figure to 20,509 garbage trucks worth of waste.
FedEx ranks as the worst courier company for sustainability
The second largest courier company in the world, FedEx, currently has the worst fleet when it comes to sustainability.
According to the most recent data available, we can see that FedEx’s fleet currently stands at 86,100 total vehicles. However, only 150 of those vehicles are electric or just 0.8% of their fleet is eco-friendly.
This means that today, FedEx's emissions stand at around 393,869 tonnes per year, which equates to the energy used by just under 50,000 average U.S. homes per year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Royal Mail could save 200,000 tonnes of emissions with net zero commitment
Moving things a little closer to home, let’s turn our attention to the Royal Mail.
According to their site, the Royal Mail have already made significant strides when it comes to reducing their carbon emissions. For example, between 2017-2018, they saved approximately 500,000 litres of diesel, equating to 1,300 tonnes of CO2e, the same as 289 petrol-powered cars emit per year.
As far as their fleet is concerned, the Royal Mail currently have around 47,700 vehicles, consisting of 41,500 vans and 6,200 trucks. As of Spring 2023, it had confirmed the adoption of 4,000 EVs across its delivery and collection fleet, aiming for 5,000 before the end of Spring.
As a result, our data shows that if the Royal Mail were to convert the remaining petrol-powered fleet to electric, they’d be able to save approximately 201,457 tonnes of emissions. This would be the equivalent of how much 44,830 petrol-powered cars emit per year.
When will the world’s leading couriers be fully electric?
When analysing the market leaders, it became clear that two companies, in particular, had set mighty, but positive, goals with two others in danger of being left in their rival’s dust.
FedEx & Royal Mail race towards 2040 zero carbon target
Despite being the worst on our list for their current-day fleet, FedEx may pull it around before some of their major competitors. According to a press release on its site, FedEx highlights three main goals;
- By 2025: Aim to make 50% of parcel pickup and delivery vehicle purchases electric.
- By 2030: Target 100% of parcel pickup and delivery vehicle purchases to be electric.
- By 2040: Plan to transition the entire parcel pickup and delivery fleet to electric vehicles.
As for the Royal Mail, they’ve accelerated their ambition to reach Net Zero by 2040 also, in a project called “Steps To Zero”. According to their sustainability report on zero-emission deliveries, the service is still running 5,000 electric vans to date. However, due to the amount of “posties”, 85,000 in total who walk up to one billion steps a day, the Royal Mail are looking to optimise on-foot deliveries with vans delivering to central hubs that serve several posties at a time, reducing the number of vans required overall.
They also will be trialling innovations including drones for remote locations and micro-electric vehicles, adding to the pursuit of zero and reduced emissions deliveries.
If they and FedEx achieve this goal, they would be beating the next best courier for zero carbon deliveries, UPS, by a decade, with the USPS and DHL yet to announce a set date.
DHL & USPS to fall behind
Despite having the most sustainable fleet today, DHL currently has no set zero emissions target. What DHL has announced so far is that they plan to have more than 80,000 e-vehicles on the road by 2030 by investing €7 billion/£6 billion/$7.6 billion to electrify their last-mile delivery service. They also state that if they were not to do anything, DHL’s annual emissions would likely rise to a staggering 46 million tonnes by 2030. This is equivalent to greenhouse gas emissions from over 10 million gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year!
The U.S. Postal Service, on the other hand, has announced plans to increase its electric delivery vehicle fleet by acquiring a minimum of 66,000 battery-electric vehicles by 2027. As part of a $9.6 billion/£7.5 billion investment, the Postal Service will purchase at least 60,000 next-generation delivery vehicles with a commitment to make at least 45,000 of them electric.
The USPS did state that they will be exploring the possibility of fully electrifying their entire delivery fleet but no concrete date was given.
How parcel delivery could look in the future
To find out what the future of parcel delivery could look like in the future, we prompted AI to generate what the world’s leading courier companies’ vans would look like in the future.
To do this, we provided the same prompt for all of the vans, “An electric van designed by Amazon” only replacing the individual company names, to reveal what we could see roaming the roads in the not-too-distant future.
As you see from the images generated, the AI has accurately managed to design the vans using the branding of each of the individual courier companies, including the correct logos and colours. It even was able to place the vans in a setting that suits where the couriers mainly operate. For example, the Royal Mail van is situated on what appears to be a London high street, whereas the DHL van is located in a more industrial environment.
The AI also managed to accurately design the vans in the style of modern-day electric vehicles. The lack of a front grille is evident on all the vans, a telltale sign of an electric vehicle as no air is needed to cool an engine, unlike vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. LED lights are also evident, with the Amazon van even boasting futuristic neon detailing, which can also be found on the latest high-end cars of the modern era.
What if tech giants created their own cars?
Earlier, we highlighted Amazon’s apparent plans to be a market leader when it comes to eco-friendly deliveries. However, it seems like they might have another plan up their sleeve.
It’s becoming clear that Amazon is looking to take over total control of the automotive industry in the future, not just the delivery sector.
In another recent announcement, this time by Korean automaker Hyundai, they revealed plans to sell some of their range on Amazon, enabling Amazon to start selling cars on their site, putting them immediately in competition with other leading car sales sites and jumping straight to the top of the car sales market. But they’re not stopping there.
In February 2023, Amazon began testing a fleet of robotaxis in California, years after acquiring Zoox, a self-driving startup company to the tune of $1.3 billion. This will put them in competition with the likes of Uber and Lyft.
So will Amazon soon announce a self-driving car? We wouldn’t be surprised! And if so, what would it look like?
In addition to the delivery van prompts, we also prompted AI to imagine cars built by some of the leading tech companies.
Image Text: AI input = “An electric car designed by Amazon”
The Amazon Car
Could this be the Amazon car of the future? Maybe. However, it does not appear that Amazon intends to create and sell a car of its own. Not in the near future anyway. According to one article,
“Even though Amazon won't be selling its own branded cars — yet — the company's move into auto sales is intended to enhance its perceived value and further foster customer loyalty”.
This suggests that Amazon could use the new partnership with Hyundai to boost their customer satisfaction and relationship, testing the waters before perhaps unveiling a car of their own.
Image Text: AI input = “An electric car designed by Google”
The Google Car
Some of you may remember that Google had an autonomous car, called the Firefly, at one point. Unfortunately for Google, it was too far ahead of its time and sceptics raised concerns that the Firefly was dangerous due to its lack of human controls, such as having no steering wheel or brake pedals. This is despite it only being able to achieve a maximum speed of 25mph.
Ultimately, these worries caused Google to retire the car in 2017, which is a shame as, despite the car only being built for two people, those who reviewed it said the car had plenty of room and a decent amount of storage space inside.
But what if they were to bring out another car? Thanks to AI, we can now demonstrate what a new and improved Google Car or Firefly would look like. Interestingly, AI seems to use the old Firefly’s overall look and feel when creating their version, but with a more streamlined and up-to-date appearance.
Image Text: AI input = “An electric car designed by Microsoft”
The Microsoft Car
Microsoft were, once, thinking about moving into the self-driving car industry. However, back in 2019, it diverted away from this initial plan to focus efforts more towards Artificial Intelligence, its internet browser Microsoft Edge and also selling ‘Azure’, its cloud service to companies in the industry.
In 2021, Microsoft, General Motors and Honda invested $2 billion in Cruise, an autonomous vehicle subsidiary of General Motors, which used Microsoft’s Azure services in developing its technologies.
So, as we were close to getting a Microsoft-built self-driving car before they changed tack, we envisioned what their future self-driving car could look like.
Business leasing with Leasing Options
As you can see from what has been covered above, some of the biggest companies in the world are gradually transitioning to electric driving. So, there’s never been a better time to make the move yourself or for your business.
Leasing Options has a huge range of business leasing deals perfect for any specific business size or needs. And, if you want to convert your business fleet into a more sustainable one, we also have a dedicated electric leasing section where you can find a car or van lease that’s right for you.
Methodology
Emissions data was calculated first by finding the average delivery van mileage per year (12,435). We then calculated the resulting CO2e per year, which was 4.61 tonnes. We then used that information to find emissions per mile (371g). After that, we calculated the individual fleet’s emissions by using the total number of vehicles used per company, taking away the current number of electric vehicles in use. Final figures then enabled us to find emission equivalents for comparisons.
To generate the AI vehicles we used two separate terms. For the car versions we input “An electric car designed by” and then the individual company names, and for the vans it was similar, “An electric van designed by” followed again by the company names.
