Nottingham City Council (NCC) has ordered a battery-electric Mellor Orion E minibus. After delivery in May it will first be used as part of NCC’s Highways England-funded Electric Van Experience (EVE) Project and once that work is over, it will be moved to the local authority’s own bus fleet.
The £2.69m EVE Project involves the trial of 50 vehicles of varying types over two years to assess the efficacy of electromobility. The Orion E will play its part in that by being available to businesses, schools and organisations within Nottingham. They will be able to use it to explore how zero-emission operation suits their passenger-carrying needs.
Mellor Orion E part of Nottingham’s 2028 carbon neutral aspiration
NCC has set an ambition that Nottingham will be carbon neutral by 2028. The EVE Project and the Orion E are important parts of that work, says Assistant Manager Fleet Services Andrew Smith.
“Our overall fleet already includes 160 zero-emission vehicles, among which are five existing zero-emission minibuses and two 26,000kg GVW refuse collection trucks,” he adds. The EVE Project will help businesses in Nottingham to discover that procuring and operating emission-free vehicles “is not as difficult as they might think.”
The Orion E delivers a range of 160km from a single charge. NCC and Highways England will use onboard telematics to monitor vehicle parameters over its two-year EVE Project secondment.
First time for Mellor electric drive technology in NCC fleet
Mellor is well-established within the NCC bus fleet, where its vehicles have been present for 20 years. “This is the first time we will use Mellor’s electric driveline technology, so we must await performance data from the telematics. However, Mellor has always been at the forefront of innovation, so I am confident that the Orion E is going to deliver on safety, productivity and comfort for passengers,” adds Mr Smith.
“So confident, in fact, that we already have plans in place to run the Orion E on passenger transport routes in Nottingham after the EVE Project trials are complete.”
