DHL Makes Bonn Pilot City for Electric Delivery Vehicles

The postal service provider Deutsche Post DHL has announced to convert its fleet of delivery vehicles in the city of Bonn and its surroundings to electric cars, making the city the first German CO2-free DHL location.

Until the end of 2013 79 electric vehicles for letter and parcel delivery shall be deployed. The number of vehicles shall increase to 141 by 2016, saving more than 500 tonnes of CO2 per year.

The project is sponsored by the electromobility support programme of the government.

DHL pointed out that it was already was a partner of many pilot projects for alternative drives and had begun in 2011 to develop an electric vehicle for letter and parcel delivery in cooperation with StreetScooter GmbH and a number of Institutes of Rheinisch-Westfälische Technischen Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen. The car called “StreetScooter” was a vehicle that was geared to the special needs of DHL, the company said. With a range of 120 km (usually 80 km would suffice) it was ideally suited for the delivery of letters and parcels. The first 50 cars would gradually be delivered as of this summer. 20 of the cars would be used in the Bonn pilot project, the others nationwide.

The remaining 59 cars for the Bonn project would be supplied by various car manufacturers, Jürgen Gerdes, member of the board of BRIEF Deutsche Post DHL explained. According to the radio and television station WDR, they will come from established car manufacturers like Renault, Mercedes und Iveco.

Source: DHL; WDR

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