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Can E-Commerce Be the Springboard for Electromobility?

03.11.22 | Blog | By:

The pandemic saw a boom for e-commerce: Amazon enjoyed 22% sales growth in value between 2020 and 2021. Uber is becoming a global leader for meals delivered at home or at the office, apparently a more profitable business model than ride-hailing. And behold the success of Vinted in the apparel second-hand market. In the context of a “home, sweet home” revival, rampant urbanization and enduring pandemic, this 21st century version of shopping is unlikely to disappear, quite the contrary, in my opinion.

The carbon footprint of e-commerce is not that easy to evaluate. E-commerce does facilitate instant and fragmented shopping and delivery, directionally increasing transport volume, but could as well reduce individual visits to shopping malls. What seems clear, though, is that shopping now rhymes with speed, not so much with (geographical) proximity, with individualization, rather than with mass consumption. Which begets more logistics: freight now accounts for one third of transport emissions, and those light commercial vehicles, the “white vans”, present contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is similar to the impact of heavy-duty vehicles, the big trucks roaming the motorways. Urban logistics alone represent 15 to 20% of the whole freight hauling. And while you see bikes, cargo-bikes, mopeds, in the city centers, you mostly see ubiquitous white vans delivering parcels or Uber Eats cars delivering meals.

Most experts tell us today that the decarbonization of commercial transport is nearly exclusively (80%, according to a recent study in France) a problem of technology, adopting low-carbon liquid fuels or changing motorization (to electricity). A relief, as behavioral changes are much more difficult to achieve. Such an analysis may also support the perspective that e-commerce can only grow and that reducing demand is not high on the societal agenda. And with the advent of no or Low Emission Zones and outright bans of internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV) in large cities and urban areas, last-mile operators must adapt their fleet. With good news:

  • Extra investment cost can be internalized in the delivery cost, customer individualism then pays the cost.
  • Total cost of operation should be affordable, as electricity recharge remains, for the time being, cheaper than fossil fuels, which may anyhow suffer from a severe oil crisis in the years to come.
  • Electric vehicle (EV) models for light commercial vehicles exist, which is not exactly the case for heavy trucks.
  • Environmental benefits will be enjoyed by townspeople: lower emissions of NOx and particulates, lower noise, but beware of the silent white van behind you.
  • Range should not be a worry for EV within a daily schedule. The number of recharging stations is not a problem either, as the operator normally has a centralized depot or garage.
  • Electromobility dominance is not going to happen right away, it will take time to remove the multiple hurdles on the road to green mobility, like:
  • On availability, do we have today enough industrial capacity to produce the number of batteries? Do we have enough materials to build these batteries?
  • On operability, do we have enough public recharging stations (in 2022: no, we don’t)?
  • On affordability, can we force the “energy prisoners”, those citizens, mostly in the lower-income segments, who rely on fossil fuels, first to drive long distances to work, to finance a switch to EV? Can we handle the social impact of turning ICEV assembly plants to EV?

In this tight situation, not unheard of for a nascent industry, shouldn’t we focus our efforts on the transport sub-sector of e-commerce and urban deliveries, the easiest segment of transport to be convinced to switch from ICEV to EV, or PHEV, as said above, while preventing the emergence of a new source of GHG emissions from our individual(istic) behavior? Besides allowing the whole electromobility supply chain to gather speed and experience toward a fully sustainable mass adoption, it would also give time for the average motorist to willingly become an actor of a proper sunset of ICEV, on all counts, of affordability, of operability, of availability.

A proper urban logistics policy is the key to this strategy, with everybody a winner.

Philippe Marchand is a Bioenergy Steering Committee Member of the European Technology and Innovation Platform (ETIP).