Deutsche Post DHL’s StreetScooter electric vehicles have been positively evaluated by vehicletesting and certification organisation Dekra and will be put into service for mail and parcel
delivery in the company’s home city of Bonn and the surrounding region in western Germany at theend of August.Certifying the new vehicles as ‘roadworthy’, Dekra issued the individual operating permissionafter extensive tests on the vehicle’s electromagnetic compatibility and other technicalspecifications. By the end of this year, 50 StreetScooters are due to be deployed in total, 20 inBonn and another 30 at delivery depots around Germany.
In 2011, the company developed the dedicated electric vehicle StreetScooter for mail andparcel delivery in cooperation with StreetScooter GmbH and Aachen University, making Bonn the firstcity nationwide to introduce a CO2-free delivery concept. The project is supported by the Germangovernment’s electro-mobility programme.
Jurgen Gerdes, head of Deutsche Post DHL’s mail and parcel division, said: “The StreetScootertoday managed yet another stage on its successful course. The StreetScooter is not only carbonefficient and quiet, it has also been developed according to everyday postal requirements and soperfectly matches our needs.”
The StreetScooter will have to handle 200 stops and starts and will be in service up to 300days a year. The body of the vehicle, which is around 4.6 meters long, provides sufficient cargocapacity and meets all safety standards, Deutsche Post. With a range of up to 120 km (maximum of 80km in stop-and-go mail delivery service), Deutsche Post said the StreetScooter was well suited forhybrid delivery of mail and parcels.
Deutsche Post DHL has piloted many projects with alternative drive systems, including hybridengines, electric vehicles and both natural gas and biogas vehicles, and tested dual-fuel andaerodynamic modifications. It has concluded that electric vehicles are especially suited fordriving in stop-and-go traffic and emit nearly no air or noise pollution, which makes themextremely environmentally friendly, the company said.
