Amazon has released its open-source CHALET technology to help the private sector, governments, power grid operators and local authorities identify priority locations for charging infrastructure across Europe.

CHALET stands for “Charging Location for Electric Trucks,” with which transportation and logistics operators can enter, for example, their locations and routes, as well as factors such as vehicle battery size and range. The aim is to generate a priority list for the development of charging infrastructure across the continent.

The Sustainable Freight Buyers Alliance (SFBA), an independent industry alliance of freight buyers, supports the tool and is appealing to the industry to feed it with as much data and requirements as possible so that the above-mentioned list of locations is as accurate as possible. This is because, according to Amazon, the tool should take all these factors into account when determining the location. The open-sourced code can be found in GitHub, under the repository name chalet-charging-location-for-electric-trucks.

“Middle mile electrification in Europe will not scale until efficient and convenient charging infrastructure is put in place. Our teams have built an effective, science-based tool, and we’re open-sourcing the code to help all companies, big and small, make more strategic electrification decisions,” said Andreas Marschner, Vice President of Amazon Transportation Services.

The online retailer itself has set a goal of being carbon neutral by 2040. In addition, the company said it supports the “implementation of an ambitious European regulatory framework to decarbonize trucks. This includes stricter CO2 standards for heavy-duty vehicles that would raise CO2 reduction targets for new trucks in the EU to at least 50% by 2030 and 90% by 2040.”

Amazon announced in October 2022 that it would invest more than one billion euros over the next five years in expanding its electric fleets and charging infrastructure in Europe, including 400 million euros in Germany. In July 2023, the online giant also put the first electric vans from US manufacturer Rivian on the road in Europe.