Swinging a fully laden electric van around a training centre in Bishop\u2019s Stortford feels easy, with instant acceleration that belies the racks of heavy equipment in the back. Perhaps too easy, as the sudden shriek of its proximity sensor suggests the Guardian was a whisker away from a bill for some new paintwork.<\/p>\n
The van in question belongs to Openreach, BT\u2019s fibre broadband subsidiary. It is one of 6,000 electric vans out of 23,400 in Britain\u2019s second-largest commercial fleet \u2013 and a further 1,000 are expected to be added by March.<\/p>\n
The shift away from polluting diesel engines to electric will play a crucial role in the UK\u2019s efforts to cut carbon emissions from vans \u2013 which were last recorded<\/a> at 18m tonnes or 12% of all transport emissions in 2023.<\/p>\n Yet while the transition is moving forward for some of the biggest fleets, on a UK-wide level electric van sales have lagged behind expectations. For the white van, it has not been so easy being green.<\/p>\n On the face of it, electric van sales are behind government sales targets, known as the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate \u2013 echoing the situation for car sales<\/a>. In 2025, the headline target was for 16% of new vans sold in Great Britain to be electric. Manufacturers only managed 9.5%, while struggling with an overall van market that slumped by 10%, according to figures published this week. That has led to a battle between manufacturers and some of the biggest buyers over how quickly Britain should make the switch.<\/p>\n For some fleets it makes sense. Royal Mail has the UK\u2019s biggest commercial fleet<\/a>, with about 43,000 vehicles. Posties drive pretty much the same route every day, before bringing their vehicles to a depot overnight. This pattern \u2013 with predictable mileage and a base to recharge \u2013 makes it easy to choose a van with the right size of battery, saving costs.<\/p>\n As well as 8,000 mid-sized electric vans, in the last month the company has also started using micro-electric vehicles \u2013 essentially rugged golf carts \u2013 and heavy electric lorries. Together those could cover the entire parcel journey with zero direct emissions.<\/p>\n A Paxster micro-electric vehicle in Royal Mail livery. The vehicles will be used for Royal Mail deliveries and collections in some urban areas. Photograph: James Linsell Clark\/SWNS<\/p>\n Cost savings are the driving force for those companies which have switched. European sole traders \u2013 the white-van man, or woman<\/a> \u2013 would save about \u20ac14,000 (\u00a312,200) over three years relative to a diesel equivalent, according to a 2024 study<\/a> by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (which was commissioned by Ford, seller of many more diesel Transits<\/a> than electric models).<\/p>\n Upfront costs are still markedly more expensive \u2013 an E-Transit Custom starts at \u00a343,630, compared with \u00a333,750 for the cheapest diesel. Most of the savings from going electric come from charging being more cost-effective than diesel. Large fleets are also in a strong position to negotiate steep discounts \u2013 large-scale fleet buyers can get as much as a quarter off the list price when committing to a big order.<\/p>\n However, charging is difficult for some drivers, particularly if they have to rely on public chargers. Openreach installs home chargers for employees where it can, and also has deals to use other companies\u2019 connections when their depots are empty during the day. Bulk charging deals mean it can get cheaper rates at public chargers when engineers are out and about.<\/p>\n EV graphic<\/a><\/p>\n Sitting in the converted telephone exchange building in Bishop\u2019s Stortford, Judy O\u2019Keefe, director of fleet at Openreach, said she valued the reliability of electric vehicles, avoiding roadside rescues which can cost \u00a3500 a pop.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are way more reliable,\u201d she said. \u201cBreakdowns, being left on the side of the road at night, are significantly down. Long term, the EV is the right way to go in terms of maintenance and servicing alone.\u201d<\/p>\n But range anxiety<\/a> is perhaps the main reason people are holding back. O\u2019Keefe said that some engineers have been concerned about not having enough charge, but looking at fleet data, \u201cI can see that engineer\u2019s data and say, it is enough\u201d.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, there is still clearly some way to go to persuade the majority of buyers to consider a green van. Yet as with the ZEV mandate for cars, the missed headline targets are not quite what they seem. The mandate has \u201cflexibilities\u201d \u2013 handy loopholes that allow manufacturers to gain \u201ccredits\u201d that allow them to sell more vehicles with petrol and diesel engines. They can earn credits by cutting the emissions of the petrol and diesel vehicles they sell (a strong incentive to sell more plug-in hybrids), and they can sell more electric vehicles in later years to catch up. To complicate matters further, manufacturers can swap credits between their cars and vans.<\/p>\n The thinktank New Automotive has estimated that the actual target for last year was not 16%, but closer to 9.35%. If the estimates are correct it would suggest manufacturers are on track to avoid costly fines if they fail to comply. However, Mikes Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders lobby group, disputes that, saying the numbers are \u201csignificantly adrift of ambition\u201d.<\/p>\n Whatever the flexibilities, the headline targets do increase quickly. For 2026, the headline target is 24%, and it will reach 70% in 2030, before sales of petrol and diesel vans are banned in 2035.<\/p>\n The big van makers in the UK are Ford, Stellantis (owner of the Peugeot, Citro\u00ebn, Fiat and Vauxhall brands, among others) and Volkswagen \u2013 although, as in the car market<\/a>, Chinese rivals are ruffling feathers, with Maxus recording fast growth.<\/p>\n Openreach, BT\u2019s fibre broadband subsidiary, has 6,000 electric vans, Britain\u2019s second-largest commercial fleet. Photograph: Graeme Robertson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Stellantis is the only company that still makes vans in Britain, at a plant in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire. However, Stellantis also exemplifies the difficulties facing European van manufacturers: in April it closed a factory in Luton<\/a> that previously made Vauxhall Vivaro vans. It partly blamed the mandate, although some industry experts believed that Stellantis had too much capacity across Europe to meet lower demand.<\/p>\n Eurig Druce, UK group managing director for Stellantis, said the company is \u201cmore than compliant\u201d with the rules once flexibilities are accounted for, but the complexity of the regulatory calculation \u201calmost makes running the business a game\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are as an industry considerably short of where the mandate sets out,\u201d he said. \u201cThe reality for the majority of manufacturers in the UK is they\u2019re struggling to comply. The take-up has been slower than any of us would have liked.\u201d<\/p>\n Druce argued that the government should remove a cap on the number of electric van grants each buyer can use, but also that it should \u201creview the trajectory\u201d of targets as soon as possible. Otherwise the UK would \u201cput in danger the investment in manufacturing in this country\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe market is not willing to follow,\u201d said Druce. \u201cThe consumers do not follow at the rate of the trajectory.\u201d<\/p>\n However, some companies \u2013 including energy companies Ovo and SSE, <\/a>as well as Openreach, have argued the opposite<\/a>: they want electric vans as soon as possible. Abby Chicken, Openreach\u2019s head of sustainability, said an end to the \u201cgovernment oscillations over the last five years\u201d would be helpful. However, she added that \u201cthe business case looks good\u201d for switching to electric \u2013 alongside the \u201cmoral imperative\u201d to cut carbon emissions.<\/p>\n Abby Chicken, Openreach\u2019s head of sustainability, said the business case looks good for switching to electric \u2013 alongside the \u2018moral imperative\u2019 to cut carbon emissions. Photograph: Graeme Robertson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Dominic Phinn, head of transport at the Climate Group, which runs the EV100 campaign to get big fleets to switch, said that its members \u2013 which include Tesco, British Gas owner Centrica, Lloyds Banking Group, and Next \u2013 \u201ccan\u2019t get enough\u201d of electric vans.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like another attempt by the automotive sector to slow things down,\u201d said Phinn. \u201cThey\u2019ll all snap into line. We\u2019ve seen this time and time again.\u201d<\/p>\n Ben Nelmes, chief executive of New Automotive, said that van makers of all stripes are under pressure because there is too little demand to use all their factory capacity.<\/p>\n \u201cMost van makers still are making less profit on their electric van sales than they are on their diesel van sales,\u201d said Nelmes. \u201cThey are doing everything they can to boost their margins.\u201d<\/p>\n The vans used for a few years by the big fleets will eventually hit the secondhand market, giving sole traders electric options. For those who actually drive the vans, there is little appetite to switch back once they have had a go.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is so much easier to drive,\u201d said Jordane Roach, an Openreach engineer demonstrating how to wire up a broadband connection. \u201cIt\u2019s so much better. I\u2019d never go back to a diesel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Swinging a fully laden electric van around a training centre in Bishop\u2019s Stortford feels easy, with instant acceleration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-388303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}