Commercial Vehicle Manufacturers: Produce More Freakin’ Electric Vehicles

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A few days ago, we published an article about Dynamic Parcel Distribution (DPD), a major UK delivery company, hitting its 2020 electric vehicle (EV) adoption target 5 months early. That announcement was very uplifting … until the second sentence. As it turns out, the 2020 target was to make 10% of its fleet electric vehicles.

A CleanTechnica commenter, Matt, pointed out how I was feeling about it (well, how he was feeling about it, but I was feeling the same): “I was really excited until I read the goal was 10%. So while it is still good news, I look forward to hearing/seeing the getting to higher portion of their fleet. They have 130 EV (10%) so still over 1100 [internal combustion engine vehicles].”

In the course of editing the article and looking for a picture, I noticed on DPD’s website the question and button that I’ve circled in orange here:

However, I didn’t click it. I thought something like, “Do I want to read their fluffy PR BS for not being more ambitious? Not really.” However, after seeing Matt’s response, I decided to go back and click on it in order to share what they had written.

I was surprised to find much less fluffy PR BS than I expected, some genuine issues DPD was apparently facing, and even a petition! The downside is the petition has gotten very little love and it’s not targeted at any specific parties, just “commercial vehicle manufacturers” broadly. The two issues combined mean it is likely having no effect on its own. So, let’s try to get it a lot more support while amplifying DPD’s complaints regarding the problem.

When you click on that button I circled in orange above, this is what you get next (I’ll paste the text below the screenshot in case the small font in the screenshot is too hard to read):

Why not 100% electric now?

DPD has ambitious plans to rapidly increase its electric vehicle fleet, but we can’t do it alone: we need manufacturers, the utilities industry, and Government (both local and national) to work together to help fast-track the introduction of all-electric fleet vehicles and their charging points.

The 3.5t electric vans we want to use are just not available, which is why we’ve invested heavily in the smaller Nissan electric vans — but it’s not a long-term solution as we all want fewer vehicles on the road, not more.

DPD is experiencing challenges, with vehicle manufacturers preferring to produce left-hand drive all — electric vehicles to cater for larger European markets. The UK and Ireland are among the few European countries to use right-hand drive vehicles, and data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association shows that in 2015 the UK and Ireland accounted for 14% of registered vans on the road. This fact clearly shows the potential market size for right-hand vehicles, and we call on manufacturers to make more right-hand vehicles; join our campaign voice at #needmoreelectric

This is where you can make a difference…

Put simply, DPD wants more electric delivery vehicle options, especially right-hand drive ones. If you agree, there’s a petition right here you can sign and share, and you can also share this article — perhaps with specific manufacturers of commercial delivery vehicles.

Help DPD fill out its fleet.


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

Zachary Shahan has 7324 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan