UK energy supplier British Gas has announced that it has made the country’s largest commercial EV order with 2,000 new battery-powered vans, as it commits to accelerating the electrification of its fleet.
British Gas has the third largest commercial fleet in the UK and has said it will electrify its 12,000 vehicles by 2025. The company has announced the order of 2,000 new all-electric Vivaro-e vans from Vauxhall and has introduced plans to never purchase another combustion engine vehicle.
As part of its commitment to become a net zero organization, Centrica, owner of British Gas, has committed to electrify its operational fleet five years earlier than originally planned and will be making further orders with Vauxhall for electric vehicles as soon as they are available. Centrica has also committed to make its 1,500 company cars EV only in the same time frame.
In addition to the 1,000 purchased last Summer, the latest Vauxhall purchase represents the largest commercial BEV (battery electric vehicle) order in the UK to date. All 3,000 electric vehicles will be on the road by 2022. While engineers can volunteer to have the new vans during the rollout, the company is prioritizing high pollution areas to help lower emissions.
British Gas engineers will install all chargers at engineer homes and is accelerating EV adoption in the UK for homes and businesses with charger installs and innovative EV tariffs. The company is currently increasing the EV engineer workforce through training existing engineers, recruiting new engineers, and creating 1,000 new engineering apprenticeships by the end of 2022
Chris O’Shea, chief executive of Centrica, said:
“Everyone needs to act now to lower carbon emissions and help the UK reach net zero. We are leading from the front by not only lowering emissions for our customers and our communities, but by lowering our own emissions, and by increasing the speed at which we do this. Fully electrifying our fleet will make a big difference.
“At the same time, we are helping our customers make the switch to electric and working with motor manufacturers such as Vauxhall on services and solutions for their EV customers such as charge points, infrastructure and innovative EV tariffs with cheaper charging at night and free EV miles.
“We look forward to continuing to work in partnership with the Government to create the new jobs our country needs as we all seek to build back greener.”
