Electric Trucks

This is pretty cool:

Britain’s largest retailer, Tesco, has launched a fleet of Modec [electric] delivery vehicles in Northern Ireland. The trucks will be used to bring customers’ orders straight to their doors. After beginning with a pilot fleet at its Shrewsbury location last year and receiving lots of “hugely positive” feedback from customers, the company continues to reduce its carbon footprint with this latest rollout. Says Tesco manager Maxine Thelwell, “Not only are the new vans carbon neutral and pollution free they are also very quiet – a double benefit for urban environments.

Well, they’re only as pollution-free as the power plant that runs their charging stations, but commercial fleets are a natural fit (just about the only one aside from bureaucrat-made niches like HOT lanes) for hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles. Fleets operate in a restricted area where they’re always near home base and its fuel/charging stations, and hybrids get their best efficiency in stop-and-go driving. Plus, fleet vehicles roll up the kind of miles that make even expensive efficiency tweaks pay off quickly.

I saw a hybrid Coca Cola delivery truck in Baltimore last month; they’re getting popular here too.