Passenger EV adoption in the UK continues to climb, but the commercial van segment is telling a different story. Across logistics, utilities and field-service operations, fleet managers are hitting what can best be described as a transition wall. The vehicles are available and the total-cost-of-ownership models look compelling on paper, yet rollouts are being paused. The constraint is not the van. It is the power supply behind it.
The business case for electric vans rests on cheap overnight depot charging, where vehicles return to base and recharge at low off-peak rates. That model works for a handful of vehicles. Scale it to dozens of vans drawing 50kW or more simultaneously and the depot's existing supply is quickly exhausted. Upgrading the connection means applying to the local Distribution Network Operator (DNO), and where the upstream network needs reinforcement, operators can face six-figure infrastructure fees and connection timelines stretching over several years. For many sites, the capital outlay and delay alone break the investment case before a single vehicle is ordered.
The fallback is the public rapid network, and this is where the economics collapse. Commercial charging hubs typically charge between 52p/kWh and 79p/kWh. At those rates, the per-mile energy cost of an electric van moves close to, or above, that of a modern Euro 6 diesel, wiping out the operational saving that justified the switch. Add driver downtime spent queuing at hubs and the productivity penalty compounds the financial one.
The lesson for logistics directors and utility planners is that fleet electrification is now an energy infrastructure project first and a vehicle procurement exercise second. Operators that secure grid capacity early, explore flexible connection agreements and pair depot charging with on-site generation or battery storage will be best placed to restart their rollouts. Those that treat power as an afterthought risk stranded budgets and stalled decarbonisation targets.