New delivery vans make life easier for businesses that want to deliver packages to Quebec consumers in a greener way.
This week, two new electric vehicles appeared in the Courant Plus parking lot in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district. These are Ford E-Transit vans, and they are already filling up with packages ready to be delivered to Montrealers.
“We are among the first to have them. They have a huge order book and bottlenecks on the production line,” said transport company co-founder Clément Sabourin, adding that “it’s war” to get these models right now.
Courant Plus presents itself as the green solution for freight transportation in Montreal. The company already had an all-electric fleet, consisting of trucks, cars and cargo bikes. But for vans, these emblematic vehicles of the home delivery industry, it was more complicated: Courant Plus had to buy a gasoline-powered Econoline and install an electric motor in it. “It’s a bit of DIY by hand. Except that it does not work very well, there are breakdowns. This one, the E-Transit, is ultra-reliable,” says Mr. Sabourin.
These truly electric vans will allow the 22-employee company, which has customers like Decathlon, BonLook and Mate Libre, to become more efficient and transport larger packages. “Each will replace two electric cars,” says Mr. Sabourin. They will also allow Courant Plus – whose number of deliveries has multiplied by five in 2021, according to the estimates of its co-founder – to continue to grow.
Another Quebec company has also just received 10 Ford E-Transits. An arrival that coincides with the change of name and brand image of Xpedigo, which will now be called Obibox.
“We’ve been talking about going green for deliveries to centers of density for a long time. The type of model we needed, in an electric model, was not there yet. But lately, we finally had access to it, ”explains Obibox co-founder Jordan Arshinoff, who hopes to soon get his hands on five other vehicles.
As of next week, we should see Obibox’s white, purple and orange “zero carbon” vans on the streets of Quebec and, eventually, Montreal and Ottawa. The company may have up to 100 vehicles on the road a day through its delivery partners, and Arshinoff aspires to have its fleet 100% electric by 2030.
A new era
Automakers around the world are now bringing electric vans to market, and major delivery companies are also making the switch.
FedEx, for example, received its first BrightDrop vehicles from General Motors last December in the United States, out of an order for 500. For its part, Amazon aspires to roll thousands of electric vans on North American roads in 2022. thanks to a partnership with the American manufacturer Rivian, in particular, and to have 100,000 by 2030.
For its part, Montreal-based Intelcom, which delivers more than 400,000 parcels across Canada every day, is only at the “discussions with potential partners, including certain manufacturers” stage. “Various scenarios are being studied and no final choice has yet been made as to which model we will recommend to our independent delivery partners, but we are proactive and wish to act quickly on this file”, e-mailed l company media team.
Economic benefits
Admittedly, the cost of purchasing electric delivery vehicles is higher than that of their internal combustion competitors: an E-Transit costs almost $20,000 more than a comparable gas-powered van, says Clément Sabourin, of Courant Plus. . However, the Écocamionnage program of the Ministère des Transports du Québec enabled his company to obtain a subsidy for the purchase of $10,000.
Both at Courant Plus and at Obibox, however, it is estimated that this additional cost is amortized very quickly, because the savings on fuel and maintenance are appreciable.
7Gen vice-president Frédéric Bel, for his part, wants to encourage more companies to follow suit. His company notably offers advice and financing solutions for the electrification of freight transport at all scales. In the case of Courant Plus, for example, it purchased the E-Transit vans and established a lease agreement.
“We need to help carriers make this transition. They find it difficult to do it alone, ”says Mr. Bel, who notably counts IKEA among his customers.
For his part, Clément Sabourin believes that governments should encourage companies to green their travel, in particular through tax measures. Because the number of commercial vehicles criss-crossing our cities from door to door is not likely to decrease anytime soon, and green technologies are increasingly available.