This is exciting — in fact I can’t find words to describe how big the opportunity is in the UK van market for electric vans.

Yet another (small) example crossed my desk this week, in the form of a press release detailing how a Lancashire dairy is saving £900 per month in fuel bills on just four vans, thanks to making the switch to all-electric Nissan e-NV200s.

Although you might think I’m being funny — after all, milkmen were using electric milk floats before I was born — I’m not. Milkmen don’t use electric milk floats anymore — they use diesel vans.

The milkmen at Grimshaw Lane Dairy, in Ormskirk, cover around 50 miles a day — a similar mileage to a great many fleet vans (think Royal Mail, utility meter readers, urban delivery vehicles).

Such a usage cycle is perfect for electric power, and switching back to electric is not only environmentally friendly, but it is proving to be cost efficient, too, now that a suitable mass produced electric van is available to the UK market.

A case in point

Grimshaw Lane Dairy in Ormskirk has taken delivery of four e-NV200 vans from Crosby Park Nissan in Liverpool and is using them to make its daily deliveries to homes and businesses in and around the town. The four vehicles have replaced a fleet of aging diesels and each covers around 50 miles a day making roughly 500 deliveries apiece.

Managing Director Andrew Brown, who plans to swap his two remaining diesel vehicles with e-NV200s in the coming months, says that he is already saving £900 a month in fuel bills.

What’s more, the generous spec’ and smooth drive of the e-NV200 means driver morale is now at an all-time high and residential customers are happy as early morning deliveries, which start at 1.30am, are now made in near silence.

Commenting  on the change, Andrew said:

“Switching to the Nissan e-NV200 was a no brainer for us. Basically the savings we’re making on the fuel have paid for the contract hire on the vans and we’ll be saving on the maintenance too.

“We’ve effectively got four new vans for what we’d have been spending on fuel.”

Driver satisfaction was also a major consideration, but equipment levels on board the e-NV200 – such as twin side-loading doors, together with the ability to defrost their vehicles from an app on their phones before getting up to start their shifts in the early hours – has proved an instant hit.

Launched last year, the Nissan e-NV200 combines the NV200 – a former International Van of the Year – with the proven technology of the record breaking Nissan LEAF – the world’s bestselling electric car. Nissan claims running costs of just two pence per mile, and says that low maintenance costs mean that the total cost of ownership is £1,200 less than for a conventional diesel van over four years.