Electric vans are covering longer distances

But new analysis has shown that electric vans are travelling further on daily routes as confidence grows and use intensifies.

Respondents to the ‘2025 Arval Mobility Observatory Barometer’ who already have electric vans or are planning to use them, were asked whether they would cover distances of more or fewer than 100 miles.

There was a bias towards more intensive use. For small vans, a third (32%) of fleets said they would cover more than 100 miles, while fewer than one in five (18%) said they were being deployed on shorter routes.

For medium vans, it was a similar story, with 30% of fleets using them on longer routes, 17% for shorter routes. For large vans, the split was much closer, with 29% deploying them on longer routes, 27% shorter.

John Peters, head of Arval Mobility Observatory in the UK, said: “This question provides fascinating results that to some extent contradict the more pessimistic commentary that has emerged in the last couple of years around electric van adoption.

“They indicate that operators are not limiting their electric van ambitions to local routes. In fact, a basic calculation suggests the majority of these vehicles are covering 25,000 or more miles a year.

“Clearly, these fleets are successfully overcoming the kind of range and payload objections that we hear about electric vans and are using them in a similar, intensive manner as they would diesel panel vans.”

Comparing the new findings to 2024’s Arval Mobility Observatory Barometer showed there had even been some reductions in the percentage of fleets operating electric vans over sub-100-mile distances daily – down from 25% to 18% among small vans and 24% to 17% among medium-sized vehicles.

Peters continued: “To an extent, these trends suggest the real-world experience of fleets over time is that electric van operation is less compromised than the general narrative suggests.”