Europa Road, the UK’s dedicated road freight division for fast-growing logistics operator Europa Worldwide Group, has taken delivery of its first electric truck from innovative commercial vehicle contract hire business, Vertellus.
As part of Vertellus’ 3-month EV Discovery Programme, the Renault Trucks E-Tech 18-tonne vehicle has been installed at Europa Road’s £30million state-of-the-art groupage 1hub in Dartford.
The trial will see Europa Road use its first electric vehicle to travel between the company’s expanding network of local branches, as well as gain valuable insight into making its future fleets more sustainable.
Operations Director at Europa Worldwide Group, Dan Cook, said: “It’s been highlighted by the World Economic Forum that shipment transportation accounts for 24 per cent of net carbon emissions and it has therefore been a long-held ambition of Europa’s to adopt technologies that will help reduce our carbon emissions.
“Europa Road’s participation in Vertellus’ EV Discovery Programme marks the start of our transition to becoming a more sustainable logistics operator. The ‘try-before-you-buy’ programme gives us an opportunity to explore the strengths and limits of this technology, identifying where it can be most useful to us and will also provide us with knowledge on how we can adopt similar technologies into our future fleets, both domestic and international.”
The three-month programme, arranged by Vertellus and its East Midlands-based partner, RH Commercial Vehicles, is based on usage, with customers contracting a minimum of 3,000 kWh per month – equivalent to circa 40,000km per annum.
Nigel Baxter, Managing Director of Vertellus, said: “We are very proud to announce this major milestone in our company’s history and believe that it is another significant step in further assisting the UK transportation sector’s goal of reaching its net-zero emission targets.
“The EV Discovery Programme was created to offer operators with a unique opportunity to better understand how electric vehicles could be utilised within the business and we are delighted that our first customer is one of the most forward-thinking logistics operators in the UK. We look forward to helping the team at Europa Road further enhance the company’s decarbonisation journey.”
Vertellus provides businesses of all sizes with an independent end-to-end consultancy service, bringing together a network of partners to provide insight, strategy and flexibility in order to help businesses unlock this opportunity and ensure the fleet is powered, compliant and economical.
With an overall vehicle portfolio of over 3,500 vehicles from 2.7 to 44 tonnes, Vertellus is backed by over 100 years of knowledge and experience from the Renault Trucks network, an unmatched nationwide network of more than 60 approved partner locations.
