Argos is set to pave the way in low-carbon deliveries, being the first retailer to bring in new ultra-low emission vehicles.
The five new compressed natural gas-fuelled trucks, supplied by Scania, will be on the road by the end of this year helping to deliver stock to Argos stores nationwide.
Designed to run solely on gas (compressed or liquified), the trucks provide carbon dioxide reductions of up to 70 percent when run on pure biogas, and are extremely quiet.
Argos Fleet Engineer, David Landy, said: “With such low emissions of carbon dioxide, the potential environmental benefits of running purely on gas exceed those of dual-fuel operation. It is an exciting prospect to be the first to put dedicated gas-powered trucks into service. We now look forward to taking delivery of them and evaluating their performance over the long-term.”
The gas-powered trucks have been fully developed in-house by Scania and technician training is now underway to ensure that full nationwide service cover will be available when the first vehicles enter service.
“We are delighted that Argos is to pioneer the use of dedicated gas trucks in the UK,” comments Martin Hay, UK Truck Sales Director for Scania (Great Britain) Limited. “Today, there are approaching 4,000 gas-powered Scania vehicles in service around the world and this, together with an ever-developing fuel-supply infrastructure, represents a major step forward in terms of combating emissions of greenhouse gas.”
The vehicles are a further boost to Argos’ carbon reduction programme, which has recently seen the introduction of 19 multi-deck trailers with capacity that could reduce deliveries by 1 in every 6 trips, offering a possible CO2 emission saving of 16.7%.
