Breakdown assistance firm becomes UK’s first to use all-electric patrol van

A major breakdown assistance company has announced it will be the first in the UK to use a pure electric patrol vehicle.

The RAC said it will trial a zero-emission Renault Zoe van, which cannot tow vehicles but can carry the parts needed to fix four out of five breakdowns on the spot.

It will mostly be used for the two most common breakdowns, which are caused by problems with batteries and tyres.

The van, which has a range of 245 miles, will be deployed in urban and rural locations to assess its efficiency as a patrol vehicle.

RAC group operations director Paul Coulton said: “This first RAC all-electric patrol van may be small, but it’s easily capable of successfully attending nearly half of the breakdowns we get called out to on a daily basis.

“We’re confident it will prove the old saying that good things really do come in small packages.”

The sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans will be banned in the UK from 2030.

Mr Coulton went on: “We have been assessing various electric vans for some time but have been frustrated by the fact there isn’t one on the market that can do what our diesel-powered patrol vans can do at the moment in terms of carrying 500 parts and tools and towing broken-down vehicles, with a range that’s even half what one of our standard vans can do on a full tank.

“While we continue to talk to manufacturers about our requirements, we’re confident we can put an electric RAC patrol van into effective use on the road by carefully deploying it to jobs that won’t require towing.”