DPD UK, the parcel delivery company, has announced a deal with Ford for 1,000 E-Transit vans this year for its UK deliveries. This will take DPD’s electric vehicle (EV) fleet in the UK to over 2,500 in total.
DPD UK has purchased the 3.5-tonne, 135kWh, long-wheelbase version of the E-Transit with 12.4 cubic metres of load space and the vans will operate from depots across its UK network. DPD will take delivery of the first E-Transits in May.
The Ford E-Transit order is part of DPD’s pledge to be the greenest delivery company on the planet. DPD has been leading the way when it comes to sustainable deliveries and last year Oxford became its first all-electric city in the UK using only zero-emission vehicles for all deliveries.
The company also announced last year that it plans to deliver low and zero-emission vehicles to 25 of the UK’s largest towns and cities by 2025. This will mean that around 17 percent of the parcels the company handles, which is 260 million, will be delivered using zero or low-emissions vehicles. As a result, this will decrease DPD’s CO2 emissions by an impressive 89 percent compared to those in 2020.
In addition to running over 2,500 electric vehicles (EVs) in the UK, DPD has also invested in a series of innovative recycling and circular economy initiatives. These resulted in the company being named ‘Sustainable Business of the Year’ at the Business Champion Awards in London recently.
Olly Craughan, Head of Sustainability at DPD UK, said: “Getting our hands on the electric Ford Transit feels like a really big moment. 3.5t vans are the workhorse of any delivery fleet.
“People really appreciate what we are doing with electric vehicles and all our other green initiatives. It is the same with our big retail customers too. They want to see their parcels delivered on green DPD vans because they know their customers really appreciate it too.
“This order is a big step forward in terms of electrifying our whole fleet and becoming the greenest delivery company on the planet”
