DPD Estonia has announced it will be adding six fully electric vans to their fleet, two of which will be transporting goods in Tartu and one in Viljandi.
Since the beginning of the year, DPD couriers have been delivering parcel in and around Tallinn with seven fully electric Volkswagen e-Crafter vans, according to the company. The home for two of them will be Tartu, one will start operating in Viljandi and three will move around within the borders of Tallinn. This raises the number of DPD’s all-electric vans to 13, ten of which are in the capital. The new vehicles are said to be arriving at local DPD depots during September.
“We are really glad to move forward with this project and can now offer parcel delivery service with electric vans to the people in Tartu and Viljandi,” commented DPD Estonia’s Country Manager Remo Kirss.
“The fully electric vans have done a great job so far. Our couriers are really happy with the vehicles, and we’ve had a lot of positive feedback from our partners and customers. The couriers have said that the most noticeable difference from a regular van is driving comfort. No need to shift gears, the ride is smoother, which makes moving around in a city significantly easier. In addition, electric vans have a lot of sensors, which make manoeuvring safer and faster,” said Kirss.
Kirss added that the possibility to use bus lanes has significantly saved time for couriers, “Moving around in Tallinn and nearby with electric vans saves us a lot of minutes within a day, since the couriers are not caught in traffic jams and stuck waiting around.”
The acquisition of electric vans is part of the DPDgroup’s major project, in which the company will invest a total of €200m to replace 7000 vehicles in their car park with more environmental-friendly ones by 2025.
“There were planned 33 new electric or gas vehicles in Estonia, but in the meantime, we have increased our ambitions and we want to reach to using almost 100 all-electric vans by 2025,” noted Kirss.
DPD is the first and currently the only courier company in Estonia to use electric vans to transport parcel in such volume, stated DPD. The project is estimated to reduce DPD’s CO2 emissions by up to 89%, according to the company.
“We are constantly upgrading our car park, so no DPD van is older than five years. This way we decrease the environmental impact and increase the reliability of the courier service,” said Kirss.
DPD Estonia’s car park has nearly 250 vehicles at the moment.
Source: DPDgroup
