Mail Box Talk – Lowering the Emissions of Mail Delivery

We know that one of the most important and polluting aspects of our lives comes in the form of the delivery vehicles that we count on to bring us the items we need. The mail service in a variety of countries operates at least six days a week and offers us the ability to receive the correspondence we expect to enjoy. With these vehicles operating the number of days they do, we not only have the joy of receiving bills and advertisements in the mail, but we have the pleasure of knowing these vehicles are expelling harmful toxins into the air nearly every day.

Solving a Mail Emissions Problem

As the EV models have become more a part of the public marketplace and grow in popularity, we can purchase an EV and have it for the driving we want to experience every day. There has been a strong movement toward commercial vehicles becoming EV models as well, but there hasn’t been a widespread application of these models until now. Recently, the Royal Mail service has purchased several electric vans to help offer delivery of packages that need to get to the people around the UK.
The service purchased nine fully-electric commercial trucks to offer this service. The driving ranges expected will be up to 100 miles on a single charge. While we don’t have any of the powertrain details or the charging times that will be part of the build, but we do know there are three different sizes that are being used; 3.5-ton, 6- ton and 7.5-ton which have been built by the British company, Arrival to give these new trucks to the Royal Mail service. the Arrival trucks are produced in their new factory in Banbury which is in the northwestern part of England.

Privately Owned Can be an Advantage

Royal Mail isn’t part of the official government of the UK, it was sold off in 2015 and is a public limited company that has the flexibility needed to make these changes and try new things such as testing these vehicles during the process of delivery. This isn’t the first time Royal Mail has tested this process, but never in the design offered for these nine vehicles. The current fleet of vehicles for Royal Mail is nearly 49,000 vehicles on the road making deliveries around the country many of the days each week.
Imagine the future; if Royal Mail, and other mail services around the globe, were able to replace all of their vehicles with EV models and possibly attach a drone to them, which DHL has already begun to do, deliveries could be more efficient and certainly allow for zero emissions. DHL has already begun a partnership with Ford to build 2,500 EV delivery trucks which will also have a positive impact in the countries they serve. Royal Mail is helping lead the way in putting EV commercial vehicles on the road; which countries and mail services are going to follow in the near future and begin to offer more of these EV models for the delivery of correspondence and packages.