194 - The Van Man Episode
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Then when to start with that. So you and I were both at the Evie summit recently, and I'm pretty sure you were there in the discussion where the guy from was it Riverford? The
Oh, yeah. Yeah, a little vegetable people,
vegetable people. Now I don't have the exact figures off the top of my head. But he said something like, from a maintenance point of view, that 25 vehicles that were fully electric on his fleet, basically cost him five days maintenance across the year, whereas a similar number of vehicles at another location where I think it was 80 or 85 days, maintenance over the year. So yeah, I take the fact that if you're having to stop and do charging, there's gonna be an impact on that. Is that offset by the figures that I've just quoted about the the differential in maintenance on electric versus internal combustion?
Yeah, so if you times that by so it's about getting those numbers, so 20 days per van, times 25, you do the maths, it's there's 500 days, if you lost that to productivity, that the thing is the guys at Riverford will have done their due diligence around how those vans get used. And they will be aiming to complete the day's route in in, you know, within the charge of the vehicle and only charge that vehicle overnight. So that's that's what the clever people do they plan to use those vehicles. Now, that's not unusual. Most the average, we talked about that 20,000 miles a year, an average van journey across a week will be no more than 80 miles a day. But it's dealing with the exceptions. So where you've got a longer journey, the thing, the good thing about vans is in many, many cases, they have a predictable route. And they know what they're going to be doing or when they're going to be doing it. Because you know customers have expectations and ranges is the it's the air times where bands have to operate, you know, on the major road network, you know, up and down the motorways and things like that. And you've only got to travel on the motorway, you know, every morning to see early in the day, how many vans are ploughing down to various different parts of the UK. And it's often the stem mileage, the mileage from home to work where the van has gone home overnight, that is the high bid. And then the operation can be quite small, but then they have to go back. So it's those different challenges around the actual mileage per day. But if you can charge your vehicle and do the whole route in a day and come back and charge overnight, one, you get the benefit of cheaper energy. And two, you don't lose the productivity and three, then you get the incredible benefits around the maintenance element, which you've referred to and which the guys at Riverford are benefiting from significantly. And I think a lot of what you've talked to there relates to what I would call the different use cases. And so let's sort of break that down a little bit and see whether we can stratify the market along vehicle size lines. So talk to me about what said out there for your plumber slash electrician who wants something like a replacement for his Reno traffic diesel or, you know, the sort of small van that the post office use a bit of storage, reasonable range. So I mean, you're absolutely right, that is that those types of operation which will typically be pretty local. So range is less of a challenge. But you know, you think about the smaller van, very much similar to the small vans running in the Royal Mail and so forth. There's vans on the road from Steve and his group. So that's for Vauxhall, Peugeot, Citroen and and actually they're sold into Toyota as well. So there's
One of the things that I talk about use cases, one of the key differentials that sort of comes up in that discussion is we've talked there about your plumber, your electrician, your builder, they tend to be, I think use the phrase SME The Small, medium enterprise. But if you then go up to what I would call the next big use case, we have the Amazon delivery, the DPD, that sort of thing. Now, I know that the Amazon guys who come to me have a minimum 35 mile round trip journey, even if I'm the only person that they're visiting, and I'm never the only person that they're visiting, they're not going to go the shortest route. So what's sort of out there that a fleet can bring in, that can cover the sort of miles you'd expect a DPD or an Amazon to deliver in a day.
So typically, yeah, I know, I know the point that you make, but typically, these vehicles are not doing large mileage every day. So I know some of the some of the vehicles that you know, are doing 30 and 40,000 miles a year. Those are right on the edge of whether or not you can electrify currently. And what we've got to remember is that we're not looking, we'd love to, but we're not looking to electrify everything. Today, there is a process for this over the next seven to 10 to now 12 years, really where we will be able to migrate everything that's being sold today to electric over that period of time. So we're looking to find the the right vehicle for the use case today. And many of the types of drivers that you describe are on a very fixed route, they know exactly what their their sort of location is where they'll be doing up to 200 stops a day. And obviously, the thing about stops is the regeneration of energy. So all of these vehicles have the ability to regenerate energy. As they slow down by lifting the foot off the accelerator, the motor retards and actually puts physical kilowatt hours of energy back into the vehicles, I was talking to somebody this morning, they were saying that on a daily basis, you can generate almost 10 kilowatt hours of energy from the driving that you're doing and the slowing down. So that helps support range. So whilst the stem mileage might be 35 each way, then they might get really good performance from the vehicle in the area that they're going to serve with they're up to 200 drops a day. So they'll do all of those drops in a quite a dense and committed area. And then they'll tend to go back, you know, to wherever they came from. And so it isn't actually that much of a challenge for the last mile delivery. The last mile delivery is probably the one of the easier areas. If you can go back to a base and charge overnight. One of the easier areas to decarbonize with electric vans of this type and sort of the transit E or the the transit is probably good enough. I mean, the mileage is a little way off of its stated claim of 196. It's probably near the 150 in the summer, and 130 in the winter, but then you've got the Maximus range of vehicles with a with a number of different battery options there to suit the need of your business. So if you're only doing so
And there is another use case in here, which I'm personally very familiar with. And I've told this story on the podcast before, during lockdown, all my work dried up. And I got a call from my mother, who lives up in Yorkshire I'm down in Hampshire. She said, Gary, do you know that Morrison's next door to you is looking for delivery drivers? And my first question was, how do you know that she says I'm your mum I know stuff like that.
You'd think, wouldn't you? But both the guys at Asda and the guys at Tesco are looking at this. And I know that they they've got solutions. I also know that Morrison's now I've also got some electric delivery vans,
And what you brought up there is a very interesting point because at the basic level your fleet charging splits into it bifurcates the day of the word of the day Bifurcates
Yeah, I'm sure you'll give an explanation of bifurcates for me, if not for the rest of the audience.
It splits into two separate but aligned route. You basically got as you mentioned there you've got depot charging so the Morrison
And we could be talking less than 20% will have home or off road parking or the ability to charge at home. So it's a significant challenge. Because one, these are big vehicles, to you've got to have availability. And like if like you said the, the DVD driver got their first and then the other driver comes along and tries to plug in but calm. And yes, I'm not sure that they're left overnight, they usually do get collected and taken home. But you still got this lag and the possibility of causing an issue for people which people don't want at the end of the working day, you want to be able to just plug it in and get on with it. So we really do need to address the challenge of of relatively slow, so it can be seven or 11 or 22 kilowatt charging by the roadside, so that a vehicle can charge up overnight. And we are seeing innovation coming in that space where there's a great company called chill, a guy called Phil Clark has created the battery that you can plug into the van, take your van home, leave it outside, and the battery that has been plugged into the van then transfers his energy into the traction battery that's fixed to the vehicle. So it's a really clever option that you can put in 50 kilowatts at the moment kilowatt hours, you can transfer that energy overnight, and then give the battery the battery back in the morning. And then that battery is recharged with renewable energy and in an ideal world, over you know, through the day, and then you do the same every night. And that is these are the innovations that are coming to try and solve that problem. But you know, with such a big cohort of drivers having to go home every night with a vehicle that potentially could be electric, but with very minimal infrastructure at the roadside or, you know, outside and even where they have a driveway. The private car will always trump that because you know from an insurance perspective, or just a general comfort perspective, they don't want the commercial vehicle on the drive. And of course, we've also got covenants, where you buy your house and the you say the estate's won't allow commercial vehicles with delivery and so on on people's drives. So there's a lot of challenges to overcome. But there's a lot of good work happening. The Association of Fleet professionals has provided some work. There's companies like field dynamics, kind of helping this whole world to understand where those vehicles will rest. And therefore we can deploy charging to sue and the public public sector councils are being lobbied or provided with that information so that they can put charging the will get utilisation but also that they can put in as a public sector where they don't need to make necessarily the profits that the likes of Gridserve devote an Osprey would you know from deploying the same charging?
You spend a lot of time talking with people who make electric vans and people who use electric vans. What you've probably alluded to them already but what are the key problems that you hear time and time again around the rollout? Is it the variety of the vehicles is it the charging infrastructure is
You hear the usual so we have touched on them. But range, it's not enough. Total Cost of Ownership is too much weight. It's not enough. Although all of these things have answers right. So the total cost of ownership is probably the one that is most relevant in in some of the larger fleets in particular, but of course, even the sole users. And there is this disparity between the purchase outright purchase cost of the vehicle residual values, struggling just a little bit at the minute to causing that, say monthly costs or the amortised cost over a period to go up. And then to recover that cost in maintenance and energy, you have to be charging them at the right cost. So the once you get to sort of 30 P A kilowatt, which is broadly what we would pay typically, and there's wild variance in the cost of energy from as low as seven p as I alluded to earlier to higher than a pound per kilowatt hour. So it's very, very difficult for fleets to really measure that toasts total cost of ownership with any degree of consistency.
A lot of good information there. Where in your opinion is the biggest bang for the buck for the adoption of electric vans, is it getting the fleet charging aspect right? Is it getting the affordable vans with the with the right range? Is it the pricing on public charging is the ability to get on street charging, which one of those would you prioritise has been something that should be
I was just gonna say yes. Well, listen, you know, one of the things I'm working on at the moment is a plan for vans, and I'm not alone in that operation. I'm working with the obviously the EV Cafe, which I'm a part of we a lot of our partners are bought into helping this challenge around the van community and organisations like the BVRLA logistics UK, the road haulage Association RHA, the Association of fleet professionals, there is a lot of coming together on this challenge that we have to electrify the van world. If I was to put two things out there that are not the vehicles, it would definitely be the ability to take a van home and charge it. So you know, exciting innovations from companies like tool are great. It would equally be good to see lots of on street charging, even lamppost charging as much as some people dismiss it. I think it's got its place. And you know, lamppost stroke, curbside charging in, in areas where van drivers might live, and that's where companies like field dynamics and the Association of fleet professionals can help councils deploy that charging most effectively because they've done research on where the vehicles are stopped for long periods of time. So
No, no, that's fine. That's fine. But it does raise the question in my mind of guessing. Yeah, I was chatting with someone earlier on and he said, you know, we live in an EV bubble. And, you know, we're very positive for a lot of Evie things. We know where the issues are that but obviously the real world does not live in that same bubble as us is your feeling that the general sentiment about electrifying vans is the way to go? Or is it the same as the way the electrified cars where the people like you and I who are here in the bubble, we know that it's good, but there are a lot of naysayers outside what what's your thoughts on that?
Well, I did a great project for a company for fleet management asked me to go and talk to the man on the street. And I took a took my Ford E Transit and parked it in the middle of Wix and b&q, car parks, other DIY sheds are available.
Yeah, it is. But I think one of the things that comes out from talking to the church is we get people like friend of the podcast and former guests, Simon Brace from the Lakes Electric Delivery, service, running a Maxus edeliver three, I think, covering upwards of 50,000 miles in a year, using mostly public charging when he's out and about, he has made it work for him.
So it's a great example of somebody you can hold up and go, Look, you've got questions. This is the guy who can answer them because he's been there. He's seen it done it. And Simon is a great example. I've known Simon really since we started the EV Cafe webinar. And he he joined it early on, as you know, his business dried up as locked down, kicked in and everybody jumped online. And we we had lots of good chats. And he's he's joined me at fully charged on a number of occasions with his van with no engine left in this van overnight, which I love.
It's a great sticker that isn't it?
It is yeah. And so he's a great advocate. And I think it's people like Simon that are educating people one by one. He has a great story about starfish on the beach, isn't there? I don't know if you've heard it. But there's a there's a man walking along the beach throwing all these 1000s of starfish have been washed up on the shore. He's picking them up and throwing them in the sea and somebody comes up say how can you make a difference, you know, look at look at all these starfish. And he picks up another one and throws it in the sea and says I made a difference to that one. And you know if we take that attitude in life as a whole in every aspect of it, but in particular, with electric vehicles, if we can all just help one more person move to electric, then they become an advocate. And it's you know, it's not a mission. Without real purpose. We're improving air quality, we're reducing the impact on our climate, we're improving the nation's health genuinely, you know, there's multiple billions being spent every year on keeping people healthy. With air quality related health issues. This is not a mission or purpose without any real meaning we are doing something positive and you know, we can all hug a tree right and all that kind of stuff. We're not about that. But this is making tangible difference. And and if we can just help and just educate and just give some hope to that that one, then we've done our job. And we can just keep doing our job on a daily basis. And Simon is a great example of that.
That sounds to me like a very, very good point to draw this discussion to a close. So Paul Kirby, thank you very, very much for your time.
Gary has been a delight. Thank you.
Couple of takeaways from this. Paul and I both aligned on the fact that we need to do to be decarbonizing fleets and vans quicker than we are last mile deliveries, Royal Mail, National Grid, grocery deliveries, etc. These are all fleets that constantly have vehicles out on the road every day of the working week and often longer. I personally think in hindsight, a fleet electrification had been started before private car electrification, we will be much closer to our goals and Evie update would have had less resistance than it is having now. Plus, a lot of the infrastructure would already be there to charge the vans and this would have given car drivers confidence that the infrastructure could support them. Secondly, all seem very bearish on fleets. Various factors have played into the fact that fleet electrification isn't going as quickly as we would like lack of home charging for many van drivers who take their van home, the need to be able to run a van all day without losing time to stop and charge and cost issues are also factored into this. It has to be said though, when Lorna McAteer from National Grid was on the show, she mentioned that they don't provide home chargers for their van drivers. Many of them don't need them as they spend a lot of time at transformers and substations were simple seven kilowatt charger has been installed which charges the van as the guys are working.
Problem is I'm not sure what the mass market is for that. Astor and the guys at Tesco are looking at this.
Thanks for listening. Bye!
About this episode
A deep dive into the challenges and opportunities of electrifying van fleets, especially for last-mile delivery and small businesses. The discussion highlights real-world examples like Riverford and Amazon, emphasizing the importance of route planning, depot charging, and innovations like portable batteries for home charging. Key barriers include range anxiety, charging infrastructure, total cost of ownership, and the lack of home charging for many drivers. The episode also stresses the environmental and health benefits of fleet electrification and the need for continued education and infrastructure development to accelerate adoption.
Original notes
In Episode 194 Gary takes a deep dive into the state of van electrification for fleets and small businesses with special guest Paul Kirby 'The Van Man'
Paul discusses the state of the van market, charging, and the issues faced by fleets wanting to go electric
Guest Details:
Paul has over 30 years of automotive experience including working for an LCV Manufacturer, managing a fleet operation and senior leasing roles focused on Commercial vehicles. Having first driven an Electric Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Van in 2004, his passion for the electrification of the Van sector is widely recognised. He now runs his own Consultancy, Media and Training business EV Essentials Ltd, and is also a founder member of The EV Café webinar team. Recognised by GreenFleet Magazine as being in the Top 100 most influential people, his main aim is to help fleets get started on the transition to an electric/zero emission fleet.
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Episode produced by Arran Sheppard at Urban Podcasts: https://www.urbanpodcasts.co.uk
(C) 2019-2026 Gary Comerford
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The EV Musings Podcast
Gary Comerford
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48:31