The Royal Mail is deploying nine fully electric vehicles varying in three different sizes, 3.5 tonnes, six tonnes and 7.5 tonnes, in a year-long trial starting today. The electric vans will be delivering post across the South East from the Royal Mail’s central London depot.
A single charge of the new electric vehicles will power them for up to 100 miles.
Working with UK manufacturer Arrival, the vans were designed and built in the Midlands. Paul Gatti, Royal Mail Fleet’s managing director said that the Royal Mail was “delighted” to be joining with Arrival.
At present, the Royal Mail fleet consists of around 49,000 vehicles with the UK postal firm already planning to extend its electric fleet with a further batch of 100 electric vans having been ordered from Peugeot.
Testing the vans this year, Gatti said: “We will be putting them through their paces over the next several months to see how they cope with the mail collection demands from our larger sites.”
The new electric vans have a larger windscreen than normal emission vans to enable drivers to have a clearer vision when driving. Arrival reported that the new electric vans will have wing mirrors removed and instead use cameras installed on the back of the van to monitor traffic, introducing even more digital technology to the electric vehicle.
Gatti said: “We have trialled electric trucks before, but not this type of design and look forward to see what additional benefits they can bring to our existing fleet.”
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As car manufacturers and the UK Government develop more ways to create a clean energy environment, Royal Mail’s new fleet are just the thing to help set this vision in place.
Denis Sverdlov, Chief Executive of Arrival, said: “Cities like London will benefit hugely from a switch to electric, in terms of both pollution and noise.”
