Virgin Media O2 UK’s Broadband Engineers Get Renault Master EVs
Broadband, mobile and TV giant Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2) have today announced that, as part of their target to transition to a fully Electric Vehicle (EV) fleet by 2030 (c. 4,300 vehicles), they just purchased 101 Renault Master e-Tech vans (priced from £37,500 plus VAT after PiVG) for their telecoms engineers to use.
Supplied via Ayvens, with Lookers acting as the supplying retailers, each Master E-Tech electric is expected to cover an average of 13,000 miles per year over a planned 5-year operating cycle. The Renault Master e-Tech was apparently chosen because of its strong range capability of up to 285 miles (WLTP) on a single charge, and its availability in the L2H2 (medium length, medium roof) configuration that offers a blend of load carrying capability and manoeuvrability.
The L2H2 format is additionally said to deliver the rear headroom engineers need to work comfortably, while also offering a highly manoeuvrable wheelbase that makes it easier to operate in towns and city centres, including parking on side streets and accessing tighter urban locations.
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The Master E-Tech electric’s 105kW/300Nm electric motor is paired with an 87kWh battery, while DC fast charging provides up to 142 miles of range in just 30 minutes.
Michael Brown, Head of Fleet and EV Propositions at VMO2, said:
“Our Network Engineers need vehicles that can support them wherever they’re working, whether busy city centres or rural locations.
The Renault Master E-Tech electric offered the range we need, along with the right configuration to support our engineers on the road and on site.
This is part of our journey to electrify our fleets and is one of the ways Virgin Media O2 is working to reduce its impact on the planet by cutting carbon and achieving net zero emissions by the end of 2040.”
Sadly, the announcement didn’t provide an update on how much of VMO2’s fleet has already transitioned to EVs.
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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Yikes, another hugh price rise around the corner
These vans are around the same price of the outgoing Transits which are at the end of their lease.
The only issue is the range and their engineers won’t be so happy about that, transit diesel around 500miles Vs the EV 170mies at best.
Maths not your strong point?
@Wezz, How many miles a day do you think the average engineer does.
Wezz: we can infer from the numbers in the article that 50 miles a day is what they’ll be doing based on a 5-day week. Honest John got 200 miles with lots of motorway driving, so I don’t think there is going to be a problem here.
Zak Jabbar: Yeah, they’ll be wishing they’d done this sooner given the incoming oil price shock.
They can deliver overpriced milk to go with their overpriced broadband
Now they just need to install charging points in their cabinets, so that their engineers can charge while working.
No point. Install the chargers at the engineer’s home, and they charge at home if the vans are stored at home, or depot if they’re stored there.
They should have plenty of range for their usual day-to-day and then top up overnight, If they have specialist teams they’ll likely be the last to move but it’s light on detail from VM.