Not sure about you, but the familiar sound of an idling diesel engine outside my door normally corresponds with a debit, marked ‘AMZN’, from the family bank account. But this month, I fear, a near perma-rattle from successive vans outside chez Hucknall will be the soundtrack to our pre-Christmas period, as online ordering goes into overdrive.
We won’t be alone. With the tabloids warning of empty shelves spoiling our traditional December feeding frenzy at the shops, it’s no surprise that online deliveries will soar this year. According to parcel carrier Yodel, 31% of us are expected to do our festive shopping from the web, compared with just 7% in 2020.
Whatever side of the great EV debate you fall on, the benefits of electrified transport to short-haul, multi-drop carriers making 100-plus deliveries per day must be considerable. Zero noise (technically, drivers should turn off their engines when delivering to you, but few do), lower pollution and, from a driver’s point of view, ease of operation, with no clutch pedal or gearshift to contend with 1000 times a day. And that’s before you factor in the cost of diesel at an all-time high.
Of course, the big carriers are already on the case. Last year, Amazon announced it was buying 1800 electric vans from Mercedes-Benz to supplement its European delivery fleet, and in the UK, DPD has just bought 100 new e-vans, taking its electric fleet to 600 vehicles in total.
But what about the little guy, the owner-driver? In my part of the world, 100 miles north of the capital, their unbranded vans are the ones I see the most of. And more often than not, they work for the carrier Hermes, which, outside of London, relies on a vast network of freelance drivers operating their own vehicles to make deliveries.
To see if my e-van theory carries any weight (sorry…), Hermes has kindly offered to take me on as a driver for the day at their central Leicester hub, and Citroën has provided its latest e-Dispatch in which I am to make a rather large number of house calls in the city.
We’ve chosen the e-Dispatch from the mid-size van class because of its competitive pricing (starting from £28,250 after the government’s £6000 plug-in grant), a one-tonne payload and a class-topping 205-mile WLTP range. Apart from the Citroën’s sibling alternatives from Vauxhall and Peugeot, Mercedes’ e-Vito and Volkswagen’s e-Transporter are your only other options in this class, but they cost more, carry less and won’t travel as far on a single charge.
I must admit to feeling a tad vulnerable when I pitch up in my gleaming black 21-plate van at Hermes’ central Leicester hub to start my shift. On either side of me is a Transit and a Sprinter, each of which are, shall we say, care-worn, and look like they’ve been driven to the moon and back. Their drivers are emptying cages piled high with parcels that have started their journeys at various Hermes hubs around the country and, for this region, have been sent to a main sorting depot at Coventry. From there, the Leicester deliveries are picked and sent on a truck to ‘my’ hub for deliveries around the city.
