Sainsbury's
Sainsbury's announced that, in the biggest UK conversion of its kind, it will be the first major UK retailer to convert its online delivery fleet to electric vehicles.
The announcement followed a highly successful year-long trial whereby Sainsbury's Online deployed Smith Electric Vehicles in its home shopping delivery applications in and around Central London.
The trial proved so successful that the retailer placed a further order for the Smith Edison. It aims to have 20% of its urban delivery fleet electric by April 2009.
“Thorough testing during the trial has given us a unique insight into the vehicle's capabilities and has demonstrated that we can potentially take hundreds of conventional vans out of our urban delivery fleet.
We look forward to working closely with Smith Electric Vehicles with a view to fulfilling this requirement.
”Simon Skeet, Operations Manager for Sainsbury's Online
The Smith Edison 3.5T electric van, as favoured by Sainsbury's, utilises Smith's latest battery and power train technology and is housed in the instantly-recognisable Ford Transit shell. Edison is capable of 50mph and a range of up to 100 miles on one battery charge, making it ideal for intra-city applications. The Edison chassis cab provides up to 1,400kg of payload and is the only zero emission vehicle with a GVW of under 3.5t to offer such high performance capabilities.
Powered by advanced batteries, Edison emits none of the diesel exhaust air pollutants which are harmful to humans, including Particulate Matter (PM10) and Nitrous Oxide. If charged with electricity from a renewable energy supplier, it also provides a 100% reduction in CO2 emissions.
Deploying the Smith Edison will allow Sainsbury's to save 45 tonnes of CO2 emissions in the first year of operations.
