Tanfield Group. DELIVERING already, and REACHING higher

London Deliveries Go Electric
Hana Loftus
worldchanging.com
December 24, 2006 3:26 PM


In London, we've had electric milk floats seemingly forever, and a question on many of our lips for all this time has been, why only milk floats? Why can't other delivery vans go electric too?

Well, now TNT has decided to do a little trailblazing, by buying the world's first electric 7.5 tonne truck to use for its deliveries in the capital. The 'Newton' can go up to 50mph, with a range of 130 miles. And not only is it zero-emission on the road, but it has also been innovatively engineered, with all its body panels are made from a recyclable lightweight composite material to reduce body weight.

Electric vehicles are exempt from London's congestion charge and the national road tax, so there are actually significant cost savings to be made from making the switch even before counting in the much lower cost of electricity in comparison to diesel. Each vehicle will probably save around £6,000 per year on these running costs. Of course, they haven't committed to buying their electricity from renewable sources, but still, a step forward. The current vehicles are prototypes, but if successful, TNT will consider adding 200 more to its fleet, to serve in other urban locations in the UK. TNT's chief exec, Peter Bakker, announced TNT wanted “to be the cleanest, greenest express, mail and logistics company on the planet”.

Now, if only the Post Office would convert their vans...



(The follow-on comments on that website are (as usual there) grudging, but do include a reference to the French postal service which has commenced a programme of switching over to a mixture of hybrid and wholly-electric delivery vehicles - which I trust the Royal Mail are watching. The article above included the image of the white Starbucks truck from the Smith website.)