Sainsbury’s trials electric vans for home deliveries

Sainsbury’s latest recruit Evie, a zero emission electric van, will be delivering online grocery orders in a trial to customers across central and east London.

Evie is an LDV EV80 chassis cab, running on a 56kW battery, which delivers a range of around 80 miles on a single charge. Sainsbury’s says it has the capacity to carry the same weight as a diesel van.

It will be making deliveries across London from Sainsbury’s Online Fulfilment Centre in Bromley-by-Bow and re-charging overnight.

Evie will be joined by Stevie, a BD Auto e-Ducato, in May. It will also take on delivery duties for customers across central and east London. If successful, the duo could be joined by additional electric vans in other areas served by Sainsbury’s Online.

Both electric vans are running a Carrier Neos refrigeration unit. The box conversion was completed by Lawrence David, while charging points are provided by EO Charging.

Clodagh Moriarty, Sainsbury’s group chief digital officer, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Evie to the team and lead the charge in putting the latest electric van technology to the test for grocery deliveries.

“We’re always looking at how we can use the latest innovations to best serve our customers and this trial will help us explore how we can deliver Sainsbury’s groceries in a more environmentally-friendly way.”

In April 2018, Sainsbury’s became the first UK grocery retailer to deliver online grocery orders via electric cargo bike. A fleet of five bikes, producing zero emissions and no noise pollution delivered up to 100 online orders a day to customers across South London from the Streatham Common store.

Last year, Sainsbury’s was named the UK’s greenest supermarket after a study by Engaged Tracking found the retailer to be the least polluting of all UK supermarkets.

Sainsbury’s is committed to reducing absolute carbon emissions by 30% and relative emissions by 65% between 2005 and 2020. In 2017/18 and following the introduction of a number of new initiatives, the business recorded reductions of 24% absolute and 50% relative emissions.