Delivery company United Parcel Service (UPS) has announced plans to change its entire London fleet to electric vehicles.
Changing UPS’s London fleet to electric vehicles will mean retrofitting or replacing some 105 units. A further 65 of the company’s trucks already operate on electric power, meaning that the company will be operating a combined fleet of 170 electric vehicles once the transition is complete.
Electric vehicles are expected to have a significant impact on efforts to decarbonise transport in order to meet climate change targets. However, uptake has been slow in the UK, in part because of concerns over a lack of necessary charging infrastructure.
How is UPS managing the transition?
Part of UPS’ plan to transition its London fleet to electric vehicles will include the creation of a new charging system, which will rely on new technology to facilitate large-scale simultaneous charging, without impacting or requiring significant upgrades to the local energy grid.
The company believes that this technology could reduce the costs associated with the transition to electric vehicles, and in turn this could encourage more companies to make this transition in the future.
What did UPS say about the transition?
UPS is expanding its electric vehicle fleet, and aims to be a world leader in using electric vehicles. The company is currently operating more than 300 electric vehicles worldwide, and around 700 hybrid-electric units, across Europe and the US.
UPS Europe’s director of sustainability, Peter Harris, said that the company believes its new initiative could act as a watershed, catalysing the wider use of electric vehicles in the freight and logistics industry.
He said: “UPS thinks this is a world first, right in the heart of a mega-city. We are using new technology to work around some big obstacles to electric vehicle deployment, heralding a new generation of sustainable urban delivery services both here in London and in other major cities around the world.”
