Electric Van Sales In Decline
By Paul Homewood
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.
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.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
to not replace existing diesel vehicles and keep operating them for longer
That is the American way. FedEx and UPS are known for operating very old delivery trucks, like decades old. I have been told it’s because of local property taxes, which can be thousands per year on new trucks, but zero on old ones.
reports are out the technology is there to convert diesel to hydrogen without trashing the motor completely.
This is no surprise, given the daily high mileage a lot of vans do. I wouldn’t touch one with somebody else’s barge-pole. Yet again we see ill thought-out government (civil service) policy.
The van users will just delay replacing vans for a year two, the manufacturers will face a two year drought in sales, they seem to have forgotten…The Customer is always RIGHT!
I am also surprised that the motor industry has always has had a strong lobby into government with SMMT, they seem to have been asleep at the wheel on this one.
NO! they’ve had the steering wheel FIRMLY in their hands, alright, But they are not in the drivingseat with it, if they ever were! ( There’s an old gag in there somewhere! )
As I’ve said before, look at the ramp up in “targets”. In a few years time there will be no diesel vans being made. This is a short term problem for manufacturers because by 2030 they will only be making EVs.
I do not want my plumber to be deep into global warming mania. I want him to be deep into something else.
Cars can be played around with by business people who’re bribed by overly generous BiK tax incentives. They swap other family cars to suit a particular journey or charge their EV at work and so on. They adapt to EV limitations for the large tax breaks.
E-vans are a different matter because regardless of price or tax breaks poor range and long charging times mean they’re fundamentally unfit for purpose.
The Royal Mail use E-Vans where I live; operating range less than 100 miles. Any business that needs vans for distance work they’re a non-starter. Buyers will stick with diesel vans rather than buy E-vans which can’t get the job done.
Government are playing with economic fire here. Either they amend their stupid NZ targets or the UK auto industry will have to take very painful action.
I was discussing this yesterday with a DPD driver. DPD have encouraged staff/franchise holders to buy electric vans. The issue he had was less about range, but the quality of the product. Drivers that bought them had had a lot of reliability issues and could only get them serviced/fixed 30 miles away. This was leading to a lot of time off the road and therefore loss of earnings.
I think there is a place for electric vans.
Milk delivery.
Floating along, with proper batteries that can easily be replaced by hand.
If you do less less than 100 miles/day, they are probably OK. But once you have to waste 1hour/day recharging, you lose 240 hours/year, which is the equivalent of 30 days. Electric vans are 10-20% less productive. That makes us poorer.
Just put a generator in the van and charge as you go!
I recall Top Gear tried that 🙂
Don’t worry, van makers. Local authorities will save you. Funny how they can afford the oncosts whilst hand/wringing about constituency poverty and hardship.
It might be an unintended consequence of Government policy that manufacturers like Ford are now threatening to restrict sales of ICE vehicles in the UK due to the fines for not meeting BEV sales, but it still suits the green agenda if it means fewer ICE vehicles on the road. I suspect the real aspiration is to have fewer vehicles, ICE or BEV, in total and more people walking, cycling or taking public transport.
Your suspicion is 100% fact.
200 % fact !.
Cycling is 10x more dangerous than driving. Nut zero.
No doubt, but the reality is people just keep their car longer or buy second-hand.
Spent last week in Centerparcs Longleat (being the good grandparent, giving my son and DiL a break and having a lovely time to boot!) What was so noticeable was the large fleet of service vehicles and land trains that were diesel BUT!!! they had a couple of electric vans that appeared to do nothing more than drive around advertising they were electric. I managed to collar one of the maintenance guys who admitted that EV Vans were not really suitable even in their controlled environment and that EV land trains had been experimented with but were a complete disaster.
I suggested the area might be a suitable test site for hydrogen heating (all many thousands of units had gas combi heating with gas hobs and ovens) without inconveniencing any permanent residents elsewhere. He just rolled his eyes and asked me to promise not to put that forward as a customer suggestion!
Despite all the new rules and regs., CO2 remains highly beneficial to life as we know it, govt. excepted.
When amateurs in parliament mandate to business professionals, failure is certain.
The issue here is not whether an electric van is suitable. Rather it’s because our esteemed political and governing class is forcing us down the EV road because they’ve swallowed the climate scare ideology. It’s all playing into the hands of China with the likes of BYD ready to flood the market with cheap electric cars and vans.
Playing in to their hands how? If Chinese taxpayers subsudise what I buy, I’m richer and they are poorer. Shifting capital and labour to new things happens all the time – it’s called progress.
In the USA the Tesla Mod Y held the 2nd highest passenger car sales position in 2023 It is also held that spot for 1st quarter of 2024.
Not a lot of people know that !!
Tesla X most unreliable car in Britain, worse than a BMW M3.
Its quite disappointing. I have thought for a long time that if there ever would be a case for electric vehicles it would be for in-city traffic for trades people, deliveries etc.
It might depend on whether you are self employed or an employee. The former need their van to be available the whole time they are working and even when they’re not working in some cases. For the latter it’s the bosses problem. The boss may well be getting tax breaks and not be too worried either.
The only viable market for EMF (Electric Milk Floats) is one where there is almost no load and they are used for almost no distance every day. In other words, as a second car to nip down to the shops and back … and that is all they do. Anything more than that, then you need Clean reliable hydrocarbon fuels, producing what every plant loves: CO2 and Water.
Yes, but only if you don’t have to recharge during the day. Time is money. An hour recharging is the equivalent of 30 days/year not working.
Work vehicles aka White Vans/Trannies etc. are the workhorse of the maintenance/building/plumbing/painting/landscaping business- these vehicles are expected to run for at least 10years with an average of 150,000 miles on the clock and have a re-sale value. The Government mandated replacements will never carry the same payload, never be ready for use 24/7/365 and more importantly, never be worth the hassle especially regarding insurance and re-sale. But, what the hell, not one Government or Opposition politico has ever worked in a business where hard work, long hours are a requirement, so making life as difficult for others is just oh so easy and pleasing to them.
BEV’s are mobile bombs, at some point soon, one of these death traps is going to go up in the middle of a traffic snarl up, the destruction and death toll will be horrific and the headlines from the MSM will tell how it was caused by …………..anything other than a BEV.
Golly how I agree! You see, the trouble is that alarmists are white middle-class fairly rich arts graduate ignoramuses and do not realise that their entire economy is run by White Van Man who will go bust if he has to spend several hours a day charging and pay an extra ten grand for his overweight van.
For vans, time is money. Stopping for 1-2 hours during the day to recharge loses £100s. If you have a big fleet and lose say 1 hour/day on 50 vans that’s 50 hours/day. That’s the equivalent of having to have an extra 4 vans assuming they operate 12 hours/day. So 4 vans, 4 drivers, that’s additional £150k at least a year to your costs.
O/T but we are below one gigawatt from wind yet again. Why no BBC story on this phenomenal near two weeks of no wind? Can Starmer decarbonise that?
5 GW and above is when it’s worth going sailing.
manufacturers need to be creative to get shut of EVs. Just heard advert for Vauxhall stating that you can get an EV for same monthly cost as the ICE version. Sounds attractive. The only downside is that this is over a 5 year term for an EV against a 4 year term for ICE. So you end up paying a full years worth of additional monthly payments for the EV (so an extra 25% over the term). Will anyone get taken in by this slight of hand? and who keeps an EV for 5 years.. Surely the battery is knackered by then !!
I suppose they’ll do the same with wind mills.
Eagles changed their migration routes across Ukraine to avoid fighting and because their habitats were likely damaged or destroyed by war, say scientists.
The researchers believe the Greater Spotted Eagles skirted around dangers including artillery fire, jets and tanks as well as buildups of troops.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c88z0p33413o