Founded in 2008, Lion Electric’s 250 employees together make electric school buses - the LionA, the LionC and the LionD. The company also lists a minibus and a truck, the Lion8, for sale. As early as 2016, the company - then called “eLion” - was shipping its electric buses to Quebec and California, and was already signing contracts to ship buses to Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

Lion Electric chief executive officer Marc Bedard told Quebec City newspaper Le Soleil that Amazon’s order was for 10 Lion6 trucks. Each one is made for heavy duty deliveries of up to 26,000 pounds. Bedard said that Amazon intends to use them to move products from one distribution centre to another.

“Our goal is that this is a first order that will be followed by others,” Bedard told Le Soleil.

Bedard said Amazon had been testing Lion Electric’s vehicles for over a year. Amazon has been looking to aggressively reduce its emission footprint, and recently purchased 100,000 electric delivery trucks from Michigan-based startup Rivian.

In August, Lion Electric announced that it had signed its largest order ever. The company will be producing 50 electric trucks for Canadian National Railway for intermodal use between terminals in urban zones, according to a press release. CN says the trucks will allow it to remove 100 tons of greenhouse emissions from the road on an annual basis.