OREANDA-NEWS. IKEA in late November will launch a pilot project for the delivery of goods to customers on electric vehicles, said the general director of the company in Russia Pontus Ertnell, reports the Russian media. “We want to test how cars will work in winter conditions”, he explained. Pilot graduation dates aren't known yet. 

At the first stage, delivery will be carried out by two electric vehicles from a shopping center in Teply Stan. Charging equipment has already been installed there. The next will experience delivery from a store in Khimki. The retailer does not disclose the partner who purchases the fleet for IKEA. Now the Ingka group (which manages the global IKEA chain of stores) is switching worldwide to delivering last mile using electric vehicles.

IKEA also plans to open five new outlets in Moscow and St. Petersburg. “We need to be closer to the residents, to the city center”, Ertnell said. According to him, the company is currently negotiating sites. IKEA reported that the share of online sales in Russian revenue in 2018/2019 exceeded 10-11%. The company's total revenue increased by 17%, IKEA said, without naming specific indicators.

Last year, IKEA reported that they plan to use only electric cars in five cities by 2020 by delivery in Amsterdam, New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Shanghai. A full transition to electric cars at the last mile is planned in 2025. IKEA is one of the companies that signed an open letter to the UN, in which representatives of more than 2 thousand companies and organizations promised to help reduce carbon emissions by 26% by 2025.

IKEA has already launched projects to process wood and other types of its products, in particular mattresses, in some countries. In addition, Thorbjörn Löf added, guided by environmental ideas, the company has already changed the design of its sofas so that when recycled they can easily be disassembled into parts from separate materials: wood, metal, textiles and foam.