Vauxhall in talks about producing electric vans in Britain

Vauxhall is in talks about producing electric vans in Britain after calls from some of the country’s biggest fleet operators to speed up their introduction.

The car maker, owned by Peugeot-parent Groupe PSA, is understood to have held discussions about whether the vehicles could be made at its plant in Luton.

BT-owned Openreach is attempting to put together a coalition of potential buyers – including Royal Mail and British Gas.

Vauxhall makes diesel-fuelled Vivaro vans in Luton, while the electric version is only made in France.

But last night a Vauxhall spokesman confirmed it would consider making them in Britain as well if demand proved strong enough.

Such a move could potentially create thousands of jobs and cut the costs of the vehicles, delivering a major boost to the Government’s push towards greener modes of transport.

On its own, Openreach uses 27,000 vans – the UK’s second-biggest fleet – and yesterday the broadband network operator vowed to upgrade them to electric by 2030. 

However, in order to drive down costs further, it is exploring potentially teaming up with other big van users to make UK-based production of the vehicles commercially viable. 

Openreach chief executive Clive Selley said he has floated the proposal and that potential allies could include Royal Mail, which has the biggest fleet with 40,000 vans, and British Gas-owner Centrica, which has 13,000. 

Selley said Openreach wanted to ’embrace the principle of building back better’ but electric vans were still only available in small numbers. 

The firm is in talks with the Government and other big companies about how to boost charging infrastructure and ‘get these vans made in Britain’. 

Openreach chief executive Clive Selley said he has floated the proposal of switching to electric vans and that potential allies could include Royal Mail and British Gas owner Centrica

But he added: ‘We have a job of work to convince the big vehicle manufacturers to put electric van production lines into the UK. 

So we are saying, ‘Couldn’t we aggregate demand and convince one of the manufacturers to do just that?’

‘Then I’d love to convince Vauxhall, for example, to put an electric van line into Luton. Vauxhall are receptive to this idea.’

Potential demand, if the companies combined efforts, would number ‘hundreds of thousands’ of vans, Selley said.

Openreach is already buying Vauxhall’s French-made Vivaro electric vans. They cost around £36,000 each plus another £4,000 for modifications. 

By comparison, the diesel version starts at £24,000. Vauxhall has made the Vivaro in Britain since 2001, with the Luton plant employing 1,250 people.

A Vauxhall spokesman said: ‘Luton already produces the internal combustion engine version of Vivaro. 

When demand further increases for the electric version, this will have a positive effect on the business case to bring the production of the all-electric version to the plant.’