The Coventry based van manufacturer, Modec, announced yesterday that they had sealed a deal with a French distributor worth £3m for electric vans. This news was released after they also announced that their battery powered urban delivery van is the first van to gain the EC Whole Vehicle Type Approval. This means that the van can now be sold to any country within the EU without having to go through anymore testing for that country.

The electric van manufacturer has benefitted from business from Tesco’s, UPS, FedEx and Center Parcs just to name a few. ElecTruckCity can now be added to their list as they order 100 vans for a total of £3m from Modec.

ElecTruckCity is a French van distributor based in Paris who have become the first Modec distributor in France. The chief executive at Modec had this to say about the deal: “International demand for Modec is extremely strong. ElecTruckCity has taken the first step by setting up a distribution network in France and we are very excited about the future of the French market.”

The vans that were bought by ElecTruckCity were the popular urban delivery vans. Modec currently have over 150 delivery vans around the streets of the UK, owned by a number of clients including Center Parcs. These vans are becoming so popular because they are built for city use. The Modec van can travel 100 miles on the lithium battery at only 15p per mile, whereas a petrol powered van would cost around 37p per mile.

The vans also help companies reduce their emmission because they save more than 9 tonnes of CO2 every year.

As these Modec vans become ever more popular, it appears that the common vans that you see around like Citroen vans or Nissan vans will have alot of competition as more and more companies want to get greener.

Modec have also introduced a new product, their electric tipper van, it looks like they’ll be targeting a brand new market. This new commercial tipper van has been designed for local authority bin collection. These are bound to become popular as more and more councils try to become greener.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if we started to see an increase in van leasing companies that are investing in Modec vans as alot of companies that are currently leasing their vans may be interested in a cheaper, more greener alternative.