54% of consumers who visited an Amazon Go store described their experience as “excellent.” (Click to Tweet)

Charlotte Newman, a Black senior-level manager at Amazon, is suing the company for alleged race and gender discrimination, harassment, and pay equity violations. Newman said her supervisor, Steven Block, told her she was "too direct" and "scary," while a senior employee pulled her hair and groped her. Block is still employed at Amazon, but the senior coworker was terminated four months after Newman's initial complaint in June 2020.

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• Newman joined Amazon in 2017 as a public policy manager, a “level 6” position. She had applied for a senior manager role, which is a “level 7” position.
• Newman alleges she had to wait 2.5 years to be promoted to “the level at which she should have been hired in the first place.” This resulted in her receiving less compensation than her colleagues.
• The lawsuit accuses Amazon of routinely “de-leveling” minority employees.“De-leveling” is when a company hires an employee at a level below the job they applied for or will be performing.
• Amazon said it was investigating the allegations and that it "works hard to foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture."
• Last month, Recode published a report in which at least a dozen current and former minority Amazon corporate employees spoke out against the bias they've faced.
• A lack of diversity amongst corporate employees is a common criticism levied against tech giants. Last year, several pledged to increase diversity amongst their executive teams following the George Floyd protests.

Amazon will open its first Amazon Go location in the U.K. this week. The store is located in West London, and the e-commerce giant plans to open over 30 more Amazon Go stores across the country.

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• The store functions identically to U.S. locations: cameras and sensors track what shoppers place into their cart before charging them through the Amazon Go app. 
• In a recent survey, 57% of U.S. consumers said they'd be "excited" about an Amazon Go location in their neighborhood. Nearly 60% view it as a threat to big-box stores such as Walmart and Krogers.
• There are currently 26 Amazon Go stores in the U.S., in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago.
• The tech giant expanded Amazon Fresh, its online grocery delivery service in the U.K., earlier this year. Fresh has struggled in the country since its launch in 2016, only controlling 3% of the market.
• Last month, the company opened its 10th Amazon Fresh store in the U.S. It's a 45,000-square-foot location in Fullerton, Calif.

Amazon's biggest Indian rival Flipkart announced it will integrate 25,000 electric delivery vehicles into logistics infrastructure by 2025. Flipkart is working with EV manufacturers such as Hero Electric, Mahindra Electric, and Piaggio. Flipkart will use the vehicles in its first- and last-mile delivery.

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• Flipkart's delivery fleet will have two-, three-, and four-wheeler vehicles that'll be designed and produced in India. It has already secured 450 electric vehicles.
• Flipkart will establish electric charging stations at its offices and delivery hubs. It's aiming to achieve 100% electric mobility by 2030.
• Last week, Amazon, announced it had deployed 100 electric rickshaws in India. The tech giant plans to increase its fleet to 10,000 by 2025.
• In recent years, the Indian government has pushed for the introduction of EVs to reduce emissions. The South Asian nation is home to six of the world's 10 most polluted cities.
• Amazon and Flipkart are the two dominant players in the Indian e-commerce market. They accounted for a combined 88% of all online sales during India's Diwali shopping season last year, which is the biggest annual event in the country.

A version of this story first appeared in Inside EVs. You can read the full issue here.

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, told Bloomberg last summer's Black Lives Matter protests fuelled unionization efforts by Amazon warehouse employees in Bessemer, Alabama. Appelbaum said the efforts were inspired by "the growing acceptance that systemic racism has hurt the economic prospects of people of color."

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• 85% of Amazon employees at the Bessemer plant are Black.
• Alabama has been hostile to unions as its one of 27 right-to-work states, where employees aren't required to join a union when they're hired.
• A seven-week-long vote is currently underway to determine if the first-ever Amazon union will form in the U.S.
• Amazon says employees don't need to form a union and has reportedly resorted to aggressive strategies such as sending anti-union text messages and posting fliers inside company bathroom stalls
• On Sunday, President Biden expressed his support for the "workers in Alabama" and said there should be “no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda.”

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