Your Christmas presents and deliveries could have been brought to you this month by the latest, cutting-edge vehicles which have zero emissions.
Buzzing: the e-cargo bikes introduced at Amazon’s Croydon depot off the Purley Way
No, not by Santa on a sleigh hauled by magic reindeer… Electric cargo bikes are now being used for consumer deliveries by Amazon in Croydon.
The state-of-the-art vehicles have already been introduced for deliveries in Wembley, Southwark, Shoreditch, Manchester and Glasgow, and more than 20 cities across Europe.
This busy period has seen Croydon get its own Amazon “micromobility hub” at its depot off the Purley Way.
The global retail and delivery firm is seeking to decarbonise deliveries in urban areas, using electric cargo bikes and walking deliveries rather than fossil fuel-powered vehicles as part of a five-year, £300million investment in electrification across its UK network.
Amazon said electric cargo bikes and walkers are now expected to make around 2.5million deliveries to Amazon customers across the UK every year.
According to Amazon, it already has more than 1,000 electric delivery vans in operation on British roads, including some from German manufacturer Citkar. They run alongside nine fully electric heavy goods vehicles in Amazon’s fleet, which have replaced some of the company’s old fleet of diesel trucks.
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Look forward to jumping out of their way on the pavements of Croydon.
They a wheel at each of their four corners. Not cargo bikes! Greenwashing!
Thanks Dan, this illustrates how clued up IC’s readers are. ‘Bike’ is short for ‘bicycle’ which is a two-wheeled carriage. The ‘cargo’ vehicles in the pic looks sooo embarrassing. How will Amazon find anyone willing to drive – or should that be ‘ride’ – them?
Have neither of you two ever heard of “quad bikes”?
I see these things plenty around the town centre, so clearly somebody is. Legally they’re bikes, so you don’t need a driving license to operate them (lessons cost over £1k now, unaffordable if you’ve not got a job or parents willing to sub you!), and I suspect it’s a decent step up the ladder in terms of pay and conditions from UberEats/Deliveroo/etc.
Would you rather be squashed by a buggy or poisoned by a diesel?
They’re certainly bending the definition a bit. Cargo bikes commonly have three wheels (making them trikes), and four isn’t unheard of.
The “bikes” they’re using are CitKar Loadsters, with a “chainless drive system” (and this is where it gets really murky) made by Mando.
They are pedal-assisted – a legal requirement to be classed as an ebike – but whereas most e-cargo bikes use the motor to provide some extra torque (oomph) to your pedalling, this system appears to use the pedals to generate electrical power via an alternator which is then fed into the motor subsystem – so it’s really more like an e-quadbike with a generator attached.
As to whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your point of view:
Good:
– It’s zero-emission, no air pollution or CO2, and produces a lot less brake/tyre particulates than a heavy EV.
– Much less embodied carbon than a van, it can run all day on a battery a tiny fraction of the size & use a fraction of the energy.
– Low top speed (15mph), open cabin, good safety profile for vulnerable road users.
Bad:
– The pedal system is not much more than a token gesture, operators won’t necessarily get much health benefit from it, marginally better than sitting still in a van.
– Considerably heavier than a regular delivery bike, these things are somewhat of a road-hog on cycle infrastructure designed for smaller/lighter vehicles.
Questionable:
– Because it has pedals, low top speed and low enough (just) kerb weight, legally speaking it’s a bike. That means you don’t need a driving license to operate one. Which is good in terms of employment opportunities for young adults who may not be able to afford driving lessons yet, but not so good in terms of potential exploitation by the employer (I mean, we’re talking Amazon here.)
Personally I’m inclined to think PedalMe and their fleet of Urban Arrow cargo two-wheelers is a far more ethical operator, but that’s probably why even after a decade in business they’re nowhere near as ubiquitous as the Bezos Empire.
Yes. It’s a misnomer
I see the knee-jerk hate-filled anti-progress brigade are foaming at the mouth over a good news story. You can bet that if these arseholes were given the choice, they’d tick the box to only have their parcels delivered by road-clogging planet-wrecking cancer-causing people-killing diesel vans
It seems to have escaped you that Amazon have been using transit sized electric vans for some time. They easily cope with the precipitous roads in Purley and not reduce following traffic to a funereal pace. Surely we need to reduce the number of vehicles on the road and pavements.
I don’t think Amazon are altruists.
Well done Dan, you’ve just admitted you’re one of the knee-jerk hate-filled anti-progress brigade arseholes. Say hello to the Coulsdon nonce next time you see him
What’s regressive about full size electric vans?
Even if I’m what you say I don’t speak out of mine or hide behind a nom d’ordure!
These Citkar E-assisted vehicles first appeared in Waddon two months ago.
They are almost silent, fast (able to nip along cycle and bus lanes and through LTN rat-run filters), have zero emissions in use and are exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty and the Healthy School Streets time restrictions.
What’s not to like?
They’re also another very good reason why the Brighton Road cycle lanes should be improved and made permanent, and not made worse and removed.
I’m all for removing polluting vehicles, however, ironically I saw two of these shoot out across gridlocked and fume laden Purley Way yesterday and hurtle south along the pavement. They really need to be more visible too, badly lit at night and blending into the surroundings during the day.
Maybe if these were in wider use, the Purley Way might be a bit less gridlocked and fume-laden.
Desperately needs some kind of cycle lane or parallel cycle path too (a tramway wouldn’t go amiss either), but I suspect that’ll have to wait for the big redevelopment that might happen some day.
You are right but sadly that is the behaviour of a tool using a tool improperly. The latter is an extremely functional and useful piece of kit (I want one!)
The former needs to become extinct!