UPS is trialling a new range extended delivery vehicle on routes around Barking, east London for the next 12 months. The vehicle will run on batteries but have a diesel generator to maintain the charge on the battery.

Where purely electric vehicles have a range of around 100km between charges, the diesel range extender could boost this by several hundred kilometres. One of the advantages of having an engine that acts as a generator but not as a drive engine is that it doesn’t waste fuel during acceleration and is thereby far more efficient than the system used, for example on the Toyota Prius.

The UPS truck has been developed in cooperation with TEVVA Motors and will significantly improve the company’s carbon footprint if rolled out across the UPS fleet. The Barking trial is in a suburban area with some motorway driving and will give a very realistic comparison to many of the company’s courier runs in Europe.