Under the bonnet of a Peugeot Partner Electric van. Royal Mail has signed a deal to buy 100 of these vans.

Royal Mail has orders 100 new Peugeot Partner electric vans for use as delivery vehicles throughout the UK. The deal comes following trials of the Partner Electric.

Commenting on the decision, Paul Gatti, Royal Mail Fleet Director, said that the company’s research had shown that “electric vans are a good operational fit with our business”.

Although Royal Mail still lags behind countries such as Germany, France and Norway — each of which is putting in excess of 1,000 electric vans on the road — it’s good to see that the UK’s postal operator is starting to focus on the next generation of vehicle technology.

While 100 vans isn’t much in the context of Royal Mail’s fleet of 5,500 delivery vans, deploying electric vans in scale will require a lot of new charging infrastructure at sorting offices. I’d have thought that this order will be big enough to get an idea of what’s required, while still small enough to be manageable.

The vans will be used by postmen and women on their delivery rounds. That means short overall journeys but with a very high number of stops, often in heavy traffic. These are ideal conditions for electric vans and will help reduce urban air pollution, much of which results from diesel engines.

The vans will be new Partner L2 electric vans and are expected to go into service in December 2017. The longer wheelbase Partner only became available in electric format earlier this year. The Royal Mail order is the first major fleet deal for this model.