Darlington vehicle hire service Northgate has placed an order for 350 Mercedes Benz e-Vito as part of a plan to help its customers to make the switch to electric vans.
Northgate is the first UK rental firm to offer the new Vito, offering a maximum range of 162 miles and rapid charge time of 35 minutes, with the first due on the roads in the next few weeks.*
The order is part of Northgate’s Drive to Zero campaign to transition to electric LCVs, which includes charging solutions via its charging sister company ChargedEV, fleet suitability analysis, and servicing, maintenance and driver training support.
Northgate operates from 67 UK sites, with a fleet of 50,000 and a team of mobile engineers.
Neil McCrossan, Northgate’s Sales and Marketing Director said: “After the huge success onboarding electric panel vans with our customers in 2021, we are continuing to grow our eLCV fleet with the provision of 350 new Mercedes e-Vito vans.
“The ongoing analysis of the mileage data produced across our customers’ fleets proves that the range provided by the e-Vito is more than practical for their daily usage.
“With a good payload and six cubic metres of available load space the e-Vito is already proving a popular choice with companies looking to onboard their first EVs to their fleets.”
* Rapid charge time from 0-80%, as quoted by manufacturer
