Electric van quotas from manufacturers creating conundrum for fleets

Order quotas stipulated by van manufacturers in response to the zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate are creating a conundrum for operators,  the Association of Fleet Professionals’ (AFP) has reported.
 
The AFP has seen that several major van makers are insisting 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. However, some fleets are not yet ready for electric vans within their business.
 
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.”
 
Paul said that the situation presented a conundrum for fleets – whether to try and place orders with manufacturers who weren’t 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 like electric vans and not really use them in the operational roles where you actually need a solution.”
 
Paul said that the situation was likely to become more acute quite rapidly, with the ZEV mandate for vans rising from 10% in 2024 to 70% in 2030.
 
“We fully understand why manufacturers are having to introduce order quotas of this type – it is very much a result of the legislation. In a sense, we are seeing the policy in action but the issue is that there are fleets for which electric vans don’t just mean acceptable compromises but effectively won’t work. For that to change, sizeable advances in both the capabilities of electric vans and their supporting charging infrastructure need to happen.”
 
Similar quotas were being introduced for car orders, he added, but this was not a problem for most fleets because they were already buying a majority of electric cars.
 
“Electrification for fleets is very much a story of huge success for cars and much slower progress for vans. While the ZEV mandate stipulates lower quotas for vans than cars, it doesn’t really reflect the extent of the differences in the speed of adoption.”