- UK’s largest roadside assistance provider adds three electric recovery trucks
- These are part of a trial to help AA become net zero by 2035.
The next time you’re stranded on the road because your car has suffered a mechanical problem, it could be an electric vehicle that comes to your rescue.
This is because the country’s largest breakdown services provider, AA, has added fully electric trucks to its fleet, becoming the first UK-based roadside assistance company to use electric vehicles to recover cars, vans and broken down gasoline and diesel motorcycles.
Edmund King OBE, AA Chairman, said: “The introduction of these exciting new concept vehicles into our fleet is an important step towards our goal of becoming a net zero company by 2035.
“As a market-leading organization, we are committed to leading the way as the country transitions to a zero-emissions future.”
Electric Recovery Truck – This is the new all-electric Volvo FE Slidebed which will be deployed by the AA as part of a trial of battery-powered breakdown assistance vehicles.
The repair company says the addition of electric trucks is part of a “test and scale” approach to decarbonize its fleet.
It admits that the complexity of the services they provide means they are testing ‘structured trials’ of different alternative fuel recovery vehicles in real-life environments to understand which ones work best and what obstacles their staff might face.
Currently, the AA has a fleet made up of 3,000 Roadside assistance and recovery vehicles.
This will include a new Volvo FE Slidebed, Iveco eDaily Powerload and Iveco eDaily Crew are fully electric equipped with a heavy-duty Compact Recovery Trailer (CRT).
These new electric additions are most likely to patrol cities with low emissions zones already established, such as London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) and Birmingham’s Clean Air Zone (CAZ).
The Volvo is the largest of the trio.
It can transport up to 6,000 kg on its recovery platform and up to 2,000 kg on its second car lift.
The vehicle has a range of 170 miles and a recharge rate of 2.25 hours when using a 150 kWh fast charger.
The Iveco e.Daily Powerload has a smaller payload of 3,000kg, but features a unique remote vehicle loading system, meaning patrol personnel are not required to do so manually.
For now it is just a concept vehicle, it has a minimum range of 100 miles – which the AA says is “adequate to cover its intended application in the low emissions zone” – and connects to a The 80 kWh fast charger will boost the battery from a “low charge” to a full charge in less than an hour.
Last year, the AA purchased 118 Volvo FL recovery trucks (pictured) with combustion engines certified to run on hydrotreated vegetable oil made from renewable resources.
Finally, the eDaily van also has recovery capacity thanks to the CRT, which is already used by the AA fleet’s diesel vans that can ‘transport accident vehicles of up to 3,250 kg’ and can also recover motorcycles, electric vehicles and 4x4s.
The van has a Dual battery configuration with a maximum range of around 160 miles and the same charging time as the Iveco truck.
The AA already uses recovery trucks with combustion engines that run on low-carbon hydrogenated vegetable oilproviding the AA flexibility in its future fuel options.
The company says these greener vehicles “will form the basis of learning for deployment at scale in the near and long-term future.”
