Peugeot has recently announced that it has struck a deal with the Royal Mail to supply over 2,000 electric vans for its postal delivery fleet. The move expands the use of electric vans by the Royal Mail which provides many benefits, such as lower operating costs and less noise and emissions where deliveries take place.

1,000 of the E-Partner vans are built in Britain at Ellesmere Port and these started to be rolled out in the last few weeks. Ellesmere Port is one of the first large EV-only factories that operates in the UK and is a major hub for making electric vans in the country.

“We’re proud that our latest tranche of electric vehicles has been produced at Peugeot’s Ellesmere Port plant. This is an important part of our work to expand the UK’s largest electric delivery fleet and to remain the UK’s greenest delivery company.”

Greg Sage - Deputy Director for Corporate Affairs and ESG, Royal Mail

The Royal Mail has long been using electric vans in the UK, in fact it was a very early adopter of them. In some areas of the UK, it has been using (and still does in some areas) the Nissan e-NV200 vans, but has been working with Peugeot since 2009 for diesel vans and since 2014 for electric vans.

The Royal Mail also has a net zero target of 2040 and this expansion into using more electric vehicles for deliveries helps achieve this. In fact, the company has estimated that the 2,100 new vans will help cut 6,000 tonnes worth of carbon dioxide emissions per year. In addition, for its larger HGV vehicles, it is also now using hydrotreated vegetable oil, which produces less emissions than diesel. Hopefully, in time the company starts to use electric HGVs too.