Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles has delivered the first of 2,000 vans to British Gas including a mixture of Volkswagen Caddy and Caddy Maxi vans, plus a Crafter dropside, and the trial of a Transporter Shuttle minibus. They form part of the British Gas vehicle exchange programme to update its fleet of over 10,000 vehicles.
These new Volkswagen vans will be driven by British Gas engineers and energy experts across the UK who make on average 10,000 service checks a day, looking after 12 million British homes and one million businesses.
For improved safety the vans are fitted with speed limiters and racking to help control any load if the vehicle has to brake heavily. In addition, the new livery includes high visibility chevrons on the rear doors.
Colin Marriott, general manager for British Gas fleet said: ‘Our on-going strategic relationship with Volkswagen is very important to our business. It enables us to provide our engineers with safe and reliable vehicles., which meet highest quality standards and offer excellent value in terms of whole life costs.
Simon Elliott, director, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles said: ‘We are pleased to see that the quality, durability and cost effective running costs of Volkswagen vans have passed the formidable British Gas acceptance criteria, and above all, proud to have our vans delivering such great service to British Gas and its customers.’
The Caddy and Caddy Maxi vans are the most compact and economical models available from Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles with load volumes from 3.2 m³ and up to 54.3 mpg on the extra urban cycle.
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Christopher Maltin - 05/09/2010 18:48
What a terrible waste of what could have been a fantastic win-win situation for both VW and British Gas. Why are these vehicles not running on natural gas? The fuel and maintenance costs would have been less, security of supply would be assured, no congestion charges, and both companies could have written better things in the CSR section of their financial reports about improved environmental impact, cleaner air quality, etc. Why do we have to be so far behind the rest of the world in the UK? Did the person who made this decision really not understand what is happening in the rest of the world with gas vehicles?