Furniture maker Ikea plans to use electric vehicles for home

Swedish furniture maker Ikeais planning to use electric vehicles for home deliveries across the country, said a senior official of the company.

According to a press release, Ikea initially aims at using electric vehicles, upto 20 per cent of its total customer delivery fleet and subsequently increase them up 60 percent over three years.

Deputy Country Manager of IKEA India, Patrik Antoni said the companywill be installing charging pods at its store in Hyderabad to encourage both employees and customers to switch to electric vehicles.

"To meet the Indian customers' service expectations home delivery will be an important component of our offer. As a company, we have ambitious plans to adopt electric vehicles across our operations and in our first year in India, around 20 per cent of our customer delivery fleet will comprise electric vehicles.

That number is planned to increase to 40 per cent in the second year and 60 per cent in the third year of IKEA's operations," the Ikea official said.

"We will be installing charging pods at our IKEA store in Hyderabad to encourage both our employees and customers to switch to electric vehicles.

The initiative concerns our own vehicles at our stores and offices, but also includes our partners who take care of our home deliveries," he further said.

Meanwhile Ikea said ithaschosenGati-KWE,anexpress distribution servicesfirmas logistic partner for its upcoming store here.

The store is expected to be open next month here.

The press release issued by Gati,the partnership will enable Ikeato efficiently manage home deliveries of its products (Do-It-Yourself) sold from its first ever India store to customer homes across Telangana.

The overall scope of partnership is a combination of contract logistics, last-mile distribution and reverse logistics,it said.