BT Make Largest Ever UK Commercial EV Fleet Order of 3,500 Vehicles
Telecoms and broadband giant BT Group (inc. Openreach) has today announced the “UK’s largest ever commercial Electric Vehicle (EV) fleet order“, which will see them purchasing around 3,500 new EVs and thus expanding their EV fleet to nearly 8,000 by the time the order is complete in 2026.
The operator, which currently manages the second-largest commercial vehicle fleet in the UK (i.e. more than 27,000 vehicles are used by their engineers across the country), already has around 4,300 electric vehicles, and they’re aiming to upgrade their entire fleet of diesel-powered vans and cars to EVs by the end of March 2031 (supporting their Net Zero target for the same date).
The order of the new EVs is part of a larger delivery of 6,000 new vehicles, with more than half of the vans being EVs. All of this will be delivered by four manufacturers over the next two years: Ford, Stellantis, Toyota, and Renault (BT and Openreach have previously also purchased some EVs from Vauxhall).
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By the end of FY24, the BT Group had already achieved a 61% reduction in its carbon emissions intensity since FY17. A big contributor to this performance has been the move to more energy-efficient full fibre (FTTP) broadband and 4G / 5G mobile networks, while switching off old legacy networks (e.g. 3G and analogue phone).
Simon Lowth, Chief Financial Officer at BT Group, said:
“By integrating yet more electric vehicles into our operations, we are taking another significant step towards reducing our carbon footprint and supporting the UK’s transition to a greener future. As we extend our full fibre build from 16 million homes and businesses today to 25 million by the end of 2026, having the most efficient, sustainable electric vehicles will give our engineers the edge as they connect customers at pace to our next generation networks. Our modern fleet will help us to be more efficient and deliver a better service for our customers.”
Lilian Greenwood, Future of Roads Minister, said:
“Businesses have a crucial role to play in driving the transition to electric cars and vans. That’s why it’s fantastic to see that BT have made the most of our plug-in van grant to order 3,500 brand new EVs – which means they will have the largest electric commercial fleet in the UK.
“We want to help more businesses decarbonise their operations, and we’ve extended our plug-in van grant with £120 million funding to help roll out more zero emission vans on our roads – part of our £2.3 billion to support industry and consumers switch to EVs and make the transition a success”.
Sadly, BT’s announcement doesn’t contain any details on precisely which models the operator has ordered or how much range each of them will have. Last year we also reported that Openreach had teamed up with ‘Ground Control’ to install an initial 8,500 charging points for Openreach. Many of those will be installed outside engineer’s homes and at key sites, such as exchanges, up and down the country. The broadband network operator is also working with other operators, like First Bus, to share charging infrastructure (here).
Finally, BT’s awkwardly named UK digital incubation team, Etc., last year “powered up” their first Electric Vehicle (EV) charger under a 2-year pilot, which is one of potentially tens of thousands that could be established by repurposing Openreach’s old fixed broadband street cabinets (here) – these can be used by both residents and Openreach’s engineers. The first such conversion went live in Scotland, but the pilot itself is focused on West Yorkshire, with ambitions to scale up to 600 trial sites across the UK.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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These will be littering a housing estate near you soon
Probably ok for local engineers but absolutely useless for those that have to travel the country. For example the Vauxhall Vivaro with the biggest battery only has a theoretical range of 205 miles which has in the real world probably means about 140 miles especially if using the HVAC. It’s also reckoned that 40% of residential properties are unsuitable for chargers (no off street parking) and those living in rented properties may not be able to install anyway.
If Openreach are sending engineers 140 miles then something is going seriously wrong 🙂
At the end of last year the government updated the guidance to local councils and residents can now apply for a grant to install a cross-pavement gully to place a charging cable in. Your 40% figure is out of date.
When I worked for BT in the late 90’s and had a team of field technicians none of them did more than 50 miles a day. The van is a mobile toolkit and work scheduling tools ensure that technicians get jobs located close to each other – they’re paid to install and repair services, not drive around all day.
People who drive further distances are usually exchange technicians and they’ll be able to charge at exchanges while doing their tasks.
Do you really think a company this big doesn’t know how far people drive and if the vehicles they order will be suitable?
The Vivaro has 214 miles WLTP range, real world range will be far greater than 140 miles.
If this whole concept is so flawed, how did Openreach manage to commit to buying 3500 vans? They already own thousands of them so they can’t claim ignorance. The only sensible explanation is that the concept is not actually flawed, and they’re working fine for Openreach.
I’ll keep my Vivaro diesel as long as it stays reliable. 140 miles is barely enough for a day’s work most days. And I don’t know of any exchange within 50 miles that has EV chargers, certainly none of the local ones.
@Ben,
Well last month the OR bod that attended for our fibre install had travelled 93 miles to us, and even if I had a EV charging point would not have been further subsidising OR with my electricity.
He had another visit to make same day before travelling back so ~200 that day, so some are travelling some distances.
@Ben, I doubt they just go to one place and go back to their depot, they no doubt go to different places. Around here, there is a lot of people in the sticks, so if they go to a few of them, it would not take long to get to the range of those Vans.
This is why when some people say about electric artics, fine if they are going to one place and then back to the depot, but not when they go to other places.
Locally electric is fine, but I feel this is a just a show, like our council is putting on with electric bin lorries that can only go 2 miles away from the depot. It makes them look like they are doing something for the climate, sadly EVs have their own climate problems.
It’s very funny to me that whenever there’s mention of electric vehicles, there’s a neverending supply of dullards who are full of 2017-era reasons why they’ll never work.
… whereas Openreach clearly have the data, and are going to use it. Maybe there are a few vans doing long days, but how many of their vans are staying local? Or, for the vans doing long journeys, how many of those journeys pass a suitable rapid charger? Or, how many exchanges are going to still be in service at 2031? I suspect more than a few will be shut down – so no need to ever be visited by a van, hence no need to add a chargepoint to them.
@Blueacid it’s baffling. People are so emotionally invested in wanting others to fail at something. If we were talking about public money being hosed at some boondoggle dreamt up by management consultants, then I would understand a large dollop of scepticism. But this is a for-profit company who after this many years have a large dataset on this rollout, so they know what they’re doing.
Be sceptical all you like, but given the foregoing, Occam’s razor and the balance of probabilities are against you.
A big problem for fleet operators is the weight. A fully racked Vivaro E 75kw weighs approximately 3000kg . Leaves little capacity for tools and kit . That might not be a problem for those work in small areas and don’t need to haul around a van full of heavy tools,testers, lifters, spares, Winch’s etc, etc, but there are still many roles that Electric vans are not suitable for.
@Witcher
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-licence-requirements-for-alternatively-fuelled-vehicles
4.25 tonne weight limit for an electric van. Not the 3.5 you might have been thinking of.
Toyota vans, that’s a change to their usual fleet choices. That sounds like it would be an upgrade to the usual Vivaro and Ducato..
Do a quick google image search for “Toyota ProAce” and you will see it basically identical to the Stellantis vans…because it’s built by Stellantis. So unlikely to be an upgrade.