FleetCheck has called for sales targets for electric vans to include low-emission options as it warns that the current ZEV mandate isn’t working.

Peter Golding, chief executive, said electric van adoption rates by fleets were only creeping forward and there were likely to be substantial shortfalls against the government targets both this year and next.

Year-to-date market share of 9% for fully electric vans is far short of the UK’s ZEV mandate objective of 16% for 2025 – and the figure rachets up to 24% in 2026.

Golding warned that fleet resistance to electric vans remains high for reasons of range, payload, charging speed and charger availability – making them “simply not fit for purpose for many operators”.

“There is no step change improvement in electric van technology on the horizon to remove these inherent problems and we hear from many of our fleet customers that as new diesel van availability decreases, they are simply planning to keep their old vehicles on the road as long as possible,” he stated.

“The Government appears to be setting itself up for failure and it seems to us that a Plan B is needed in the instance that the ZEV mandate for the van market simply doesn’t work.

While lower prices and higher incentives are being used to overcome consumer resistance in the electric car market, Golding said this wouldn’t work for the van sector.

Instead, he suggested that further low-emission technologies could be added to the ZEV mandate scheme to reduce van emissions over time, creating a bridge to a zero-emission electric van future.

China’s New Emissions Vehicle (NEV) scheme, which allows manufacturers to use a range of technologies to meet low-emission targets, could offer a potential model for an alternative.

“The Chinese approach is to set emissions targets and let the engineers decide which solution will work best. As a result, they are using not just battery electric vehicles but range extenders, plug-in hybrids with significant electric range and even fuel cells.

“A multi-level approach could be adopted by our government as a Plan B with inducements for fleets to adopt low-emission vans using these technologies alongside zero-emission models, which would continue to enjoy higher incentives. That could create substantial improvements in overall carbon emissions and allow fleets to keep operating efficiently.”

He finished: “Our view is very much that van operators need to be taken on a journey that leads from diesel models to intermediate NEV-style options and then move over to electric vans as the technology improves.”