VERTELLUS

Renault Trucks and its UK dealers have set up a new contract hire company called Vertellus which aims to help transport fleets make the transition to zero-emission vehicles as painless as possible.

Words: Steve Banner

Thename

neatly describes the project’s laudable ambitions. ‘Vert’ means ‘green’ in French, while ‘tellus’ means ‘Earth’ in Latin.

Sixty per cent owned by Renault dealers, with Renault Trucks owning the remaining 40%, Vertellus has an initial 30 electric Renault 16and 18 tonners on its books with curtainsider, box, or fridge bodies. It is collaborating with charging specialist Zenobe Energy to provide customers with battery charging facilities as well as the vehicles they need.

Appreciating that businesses will want to evaluate electric trucks over several weeks to see if they match their duty cycles before committing to them, Vertellus has developed EV Discovery. It is a three-month trial based around usage.

Customers agree to use a minimum of 3,000kWh of power per vehicle per month at a rate of £1.50/kWh for one of the boxes or curtainsiders referred to above, or £1.90/kWh for a fridge. In return they receive the truck and a temporary DC 60kW charger along with all the necessary support services

For an extra payment the charger can be upgraded to a DC 120kW fast-charger, which includes a 160kWh storage battery. Choosing this option will increase the per-kWh rate to £2.00 if you have chosen, say, an 18-tonne box van, or £2.40 if you have selected an 18-tonne fridge, for example.

Use your Renault more intensively than the minimum kilowatt-hours quoted and you will face an additional per-kWh levy.

Despite the way in which usage is measured, the per-kWh figures do not include the cost of the electricity the truck will actually consume. That will be subject to negotiations between the transport company and its energy provider.

Fitted with four 66kWh batteries, the box and curtainsider models should be able to cover 125 miles before they need recharging. Despite the power drain potentially imposed by their fridge units, refrigerated models are said to deliver slightly more mileage because they come with four 94kWh batteries.

At a minimum £4,500 a month, EV Discovery does not come cheap. The rate quoted is not excessive when compared with what is being quoted by other providers however, and the data the three-month exercise will generate for the operator could prove invaluable.

The electricity a truck operated under the programme will consume will still be cheaper per mile than the fuel used by its diesel stable-mates, despite price rises. Deploying quiet electric trucks is likely to make out-ofhours deliveries more acceptable, and it is becoming increasingly clear that some local authorities want to exclude all diesels from their catchment areas if they possibly can.

In Oxford only vehicles that are zero-emission enjoy unrestricted access to certain streets in the city centre. The number of streets affected is sure to widen.