Fleets to keep diesel vans running for longer
A new white paper has been published to support businesses who want to keep their diesel vans on the roads for longer.
The paper, written by FleetCheck, has been produced after it identified an industry trend for substantially extended replacement cycles.
It says this is being caused by the ZEV Mandate, which is rising the value of diesel vans and reducing their supply, meaning fleets are likely to run their existing fleets for much longer.
Barrie Wilson, commercial fleet consultant at FleetCheck, said: “There are two key trends in the van sector. One is that because of issues over range, payload and cost, van fleets are not electrifying at anything like the rate envisaged in the ZEV Mandate.
“The second is that major manufacturers including Ford and Stellantis have said that they will meet the production ratios stipulated in the ZEV Mandate by reducing diesel van production rather than risk paying the extremely high punitive fines.
“The most probable result of these market conditions is that diesel vans are going to become in increasingly short supply and more expensive. Yes, some fleets will start to electrify in response but the indications that we see across our customer base are that many will hang on to their existing diesel vans for much longer.”
Havana Syndrome
It has called this ‘Havana Syndrome’, after drivers in Cuba invested time and money into their American cars to keep them roadworthy in the 1950s following US sanctions.
Wilson said: “One of the key developments we saw post-pandemic was for fleets to extend their replacement cycles. They are typically already a couple of years longer for diesel vans than before Covid and there is now this possibility they could be stretched even further.
“There’s no denying that operating vans into probably eight years and longer will create significant issues for fleets and we use the white paper to examine these. Our view is that it is viable for operators but will require a high degree of effort and of course, fleet management software has a key role to play.”
