A parade of delivery vehicles rumbles through the streets every day, carrying bags and boxes of clothes, groceries and diapers directly to our doorsteps. Vans and trucks burning fossil fuels are fulfilling the nation’s rising demand for online shopping — and they’re bringing noise, noxious fumes and planet-warming gases into neighborhoods across the country.
In response, automakers and logistics giants are accelerating efforts to electrify commercial vehicles, which have lagged behind passenger cars when it comes to replacing polluting engines with emissions-free batteries.
Among the latest contenders vying to clean up fleets is Arrival.
The British startup is partnering with UPS, which has placed an order for 10,000 of the company’s electric delivery vans. Arrival plans to start producing the vehicles later this year in the United Kingdom and the United States. The two companies are collaborating to design vans for drivers making dozens of daily stops, who are hauling ever-growing volumes of goods, said Avinash Rugoobur, Arrival’s president.