Shoreham Vehicle Auctions (SVA) has launched an electric van training course that will equip LCV dealers to deal with fleet EV queries.

The SVA course will better equip user dealers to sell electric vans.

Following in the footsteps of its existing dealer scheme for electric cars – which scooped the Innovation in Remarketing award at this year’s Fleet World Honours– the course has again been developed in conjunction with the Energy Saving Trust and seeks to provide dealer sales staff and fleet vendors with knowledge on all aspects of used electric vans, enabling them to provide advice for van operators on buying the right vehicle.

The bi-monthly courses will run at SVA’s Shoreham boardroom from the summer through to the end of the year in small groups of 10.

The courses complement SVA’s work to encourage leasing companies are being urged to cut monthly costs on electric vehicles by taking action to increase residual values through used buyer education – SVA has previously said that leasing firms are “sitting on the fence” on EVs and should instead be embracing them.

Commenting that vendors will find the course useful, Michael Simmons, SVA’s operations director, said: “In the past they have been far too risk adverse about underwriting electric van residual values due to the uncertainty of the future used market. Leasing companies should now look at writing sensible residuals which will help bring leasing costs down and fuel new van sales growth.”