A British consortium is building two fully functioning prototype electric delivery vans that emit 70 grams of CO2 per kilometre—less than half the 192g/km of today’s best-in-class diesel vans. Current 3.5-tonne delivery vans are workhorses for fleets like Royal Mail and DHL, but their diesel engines produce high emissions and running costs. This project tackles the engineering challenge of making a lightweight, low-emission van that can still handle the punishing daily duty cycles of commercial fleets—stop-start urban deliveries, heavy loads, and long hours—without costing more to operate. If the prototypes succeed, the design could be scaled for soft-tooled, lower-volume production. The van uses an aluminium chassis, composite body panels, a UK-built battery and traction motor, plus a diesel range extender for longer trips. The consortium blends motorsport engineering (from Lotus and Multimatic) with mainstream automotive know-how. The target is fleet operators committed to decarbonising transport. If the running costs match current vehicles, the main barrier to adoption—higher upfront price—could be overcome, shifting commercial fleets toward significantly lower carbon emissions without sacrificing performance or budget.
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This project will deliver two fully functioning prototype lightweight electric vans, with diesel range extender. The overall van design and driver ergonomics will be specifically configured to meet the onerous duty cycle requirements of commercial vehicle fleet operators (running 3.5tgvw vans). CO2 emissions will be 70g/km (versus 192g/km for current best in class vehicles) and total life running costs will be equal to or less than current vehicles. This will be achieved by the innovative use of new materials, the latest vehicle and component technologies and new approaches to integration, control and system management and vehicle systems health monitoring architectures. The van will feature an aluminium chassis, space frame cab structure, lightweight composite body panels and UK based battery and traction motor technology. The development programme will blend conventional approaches with UK automotive engineering advances typically applied to motorsport, high end and exotic passenger vehicles, to create a truly unique commercial van for local soft tooled , lower volume (but scalable) production. The target market is UK and European fleet operators with a commitment to de-carbonising transport operations. Specification and duty cycle input has already been derived from “voice of the customer” involvement of Royal Mail and DHL, which will be maintained throughout the project. The project consortium combines 'best of British' automotive design, engineering and development technology (Revolve Technologies, Ricardo,Multimatic and Lotus Lightweight Structures) alongside key component developers (Axeon and Evo Electric) and is led by Intelligent Energy.
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