Will fleets stockpile existing vehicles to sidestep electrification…? By Paul Hollick, chair of the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP).

Paul Hollick, chair of the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP)

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the Ford Crown Victoria. It’s a venerable US model, resolutely old school with a V8 engine and a body-on-chassis design. The photograph in this article might make you feel nostalgic, because the model was often used as a police patrol car or taxi. Even if you’ve never visited the US, it’s a mainstay of television and cinema.

Many US police forces loved the Crown Vic and, when production ended in 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department stockpiled 600 of them, gradually putting them into service as old ones gave up the ghost. Today, there’s more than 400 still in operation. The fleet department says that parts availability is becoming an issue and maintenance costs are inevitably rising – but the plan is just to keep running them for as long as is practical. Apparently, they just fit their operational role really, really well.

But what, exactly, has the Crown Vic got to do with modern fleet thinking in the UK? Well, here at the AFP, we’ve been considering the implications of the ZEV mandate in the van sector. As you probably (hopefully) know, this currently stipulates 10% electric vans sales, rising to 70% in 2030. Some, perhaps the majority, of manufacturers are responding to this situation by insisting that typically 10% of all fleet new van orders must be EV.

What manufacturers are doing here is understandable. The fines for not meeting the ZEV mandate targets are swingeing but equally, for some van fleets, van electrification is just impractical. Their current vans carry payloads that are too heavy over too long a distance along routes where charging is often unavailable for an electric model to be a practical proposition.

The options facing these fleets in the wake of the mandate are not appealing in the current landscape. They can compromise their operational needs by attempting to electrify, buy 10% of electric vans and assign them to light duties or park them up or, simply do a Crown Vic. They may decide to hold onto their existing diesels for longer, perhaps much longer, or even buy new ones to stockpile.

One of the lessons of post-pandemic fleet management is that all vehicles, including vans, can be conceivably operated for several more years than previous accepted. Vans running into their seventh or eighth year are now far from unknown. Yes, maintenance becomes an issue in terms of cost and parts availability – and, with it, both increased downtime and reduced reliability – but some might consider these disadvantages worth bearing. Of course, other factors might come into play. The Government is likely to make diesel less attractive over time through other measures, such as a higher road fund licence. Meanwhile, the vast majority of businesses will probably want to electrify because going zero emissions is very much the responsible path to follow in a corporate, environmental sense.

It’s conceivable, even probable, that a number of fleets will effectively thumb their nose at the prevailing trends and keep running diesel vans for as long as possible. If the LA police can keep considerable numbers of Crown Vics in circulation more than a dozen years after production stopped, it’s not beyond the ability of UK fleet managers to keep thousands of diesel panel vans on the road, perhaps well into the 2040s.

I’m not saying for a moment that this is desirable. The AFP is very much in favour of zero emissions fleets and for electric vans to advance to the point where they are the natural choice for all operators. However, it’s certainly possible that some businesses will resist as long as possible, and it’s far from being an impractical choice, as the Crown Vic shows.