Swansea Council has taken delivery of 40 Peugeot Partner Electric SE L1 vans, making Swansea the local authority with the largest electric van fleet in Wales.
The order is also one of the largest single orders from a local authority for electric vehicles. The Partner Electric vans will be used predominantly by Swansea’s Corporate Building Services, Waste Management, Parks, Highways, Car Parks and Street Cleansing teams.
The vehicles have been leased on a five-year contract hire agreement, including maintenance and breakdown cover, from independent vehicle leasing and fleet management company Days Fleet.
The vans are all fitted with ply lining and some feature “Chapter 8” high-visibility markings on the rear doors, depending on allocated use, and have been supplied through local Peugeot Dealer CEM Day.
“Swansea Council consistently seeks to minimise the impact of its vehicle operations in what is a predominantly urban setting and had previously established the clear environmental benefits of electric vehicles with the adoption of 10 electric pool cars”, said Mark Barrow, fleet manager at the central transport unit at Swansea Council.
“An analysis of journeys and mileages clearly demonstrated their potential viability, whilst the preferred five-year lease equated to a budget neutral position that enabled us to achieve a much greener fleet.”
Swansea Council said it chose the Peugeot Partner Electric because the requirement for its small vans is predominantly for use on short, local journeys.
“The excellent support provided by Peugeot in terms of infrastructure development allowed the council to install the necessary charge-points at all key municipal locations”, said Barrow.
“The establishment of this base-to-base charge-point network secured the opportunity to acquire the 40 vans.”
The existing EV support relationship with CEM Day, established with the previous electric pool cars, provided another key determining factor in the adoption of the Partner Electric vans.
“Days Fleet continues to be proud to secure the funding and fleet management for another public sector organisation and is delighted to assist Swansea Council with its electric van requirements.” said Aled Williams, managing director of Days Fleet.
Helen Lees, head of electric vehicles at Group PSA, said: “The duty cycles of many of the Swansea Council van fleet are well suited to electric motoring and suggest that many other local authorities could tap into similar cost saving and environmental benefits.
”We are delighted to have helped the Council bring together the right vehicles and charging infrastructure to assist it in reducing the impact of its vehicle operations.”
Iain - 13/07/2018 22:35
One has to wonder what the true cost of this actually is, what exactly was the cost to install the necessary infrastructure, what are the monthly lease costs per month and what is the additional cost to recharge these vehicles? As electricity is far from clean to generate, I suspect there is a lot of smoke and mirrors at play here but happy to be proved wrong. Can you publish evidence to substantiate the true lease, maintenance and running costs and environmental benefits claimed?