By Paul Homewood
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LCV Registrations
https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/lcv-registrations/
Whilst EV car sales remain sluggish, the market for electric vans is even worse. The government’s ZEV mandate demands that 10% of van sales are electric this year, and this figure rises rapidly in the next few years.
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https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pathway-for-zero-emission-vehicle-transition-by-2035-becomes-law
However sales of the useless things gave actually fallen this year, and only account for 4.9% of the market.
Fleetworld sum up the problem:
The Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP) said several major van makers now insist that a proportion of all vehicle orders must be electric vans in order to reflect the percentage of ZEV vehicles they are now legally required to sell – creating a dilemma for fleets that can’t go electric yet.
AFP chair Paul Hollick explained: “It’s quickly becoming a widespread practice that when a fleet wants to order a quantity of vans, manufacturers are asserting that a percentage is electric – often 10% to reflect the 2024 ZEV mandate.
“The problem is that some fleets just don’t have a role for these electric vans within their business. Their payload and range requirements mean there is no operational profile for which the electric van can be practically used, or there is no suitable charging infrastructure.”
Hollick said that the situation presented a dilemma for fleets – whether to switch to manufacturers not insisting on order quotas, to not replace existing diesel vehicles and keep operating them for longer, or to buy quota electric vans and use them for occasional lighter duties or simply park them up.
“All of these courses of action are far from ideal. Changing van supplier can be quite an arduous task for fleets, meaning that the whole van unit has to be rethought including fitting out. Hanging onto older vans that really need to be replaced means that you are likely to experience problems with reliability and has potential risk management and environmental implications.
“Lastly, it’s just not viable to buy expensive assets such as electric vans and not really use them in the operational roles where you actually need a solution.”
https://fleetworld.co.uk/zev-order-quotas-creating-dilemmas-for-van-fleet-replacements-warns-afp/
I suspect we are going to see increasing numbers of imported vans, which in turn will exacerbate the problems for UK manufacturers.
