The Commercial Vehicle Opportunity
The Commercial Vehicle, EV Switch Opportunity
204TWh - Electricity reduction
£30bn - Cost reduction per year
There are approximately 42 million vehicles on the road. Of these 12 million are business vehicles, which travel 160 billion miles annually and consume 29 billion litres of petrol and diesel per year. Interestingly, petrol and diesel engines are only about 25% to 30% efficient compared to electric vehicles, which are c.85% efficient. Thus, switching all business vehicles to electric would mean the total energy needed to fuel these vehicles would drop from 285 TWh to just 81 TWh.
THIS POWER SAVING IS WORTH £30bn TO UK BUSINESSES
That's the equivalent power required to operate 41,000 large 5GWh factories, or 100,000 large 2GWh distribution depots. The impact of this switch is also a 16% reduction in UK emissions, equivalent to a mountain of carbon 4km high and 5km wide, approximately the size of Mont Blanc, every year.
The economic benefits of switching commercial transport to electric are transformative. By 2030, a fleet of 10.8 million EVs (Breathe’s forecast based on the government ZEV mandates) could cut operating costs for businesses by around £7.8 billion annually, combining fuel and maintenance savings. Full electrification of vans, HGVs, buses, coaches, and company cars could deliver annual fuel cost reductions of approximately £30 billion, even after accounting for electricity costs. For businesses, this means lower exposure to volatile oil markets, improved fleet economics, and enhanced resilience against energy shocks.
Unlike fossil fuels, EV charging can be flexible and increasingly localised. With 70% to 80% of HGVs charging at depots and company cars and vans charging predominantly at home or in the workplace, powering these vehicles using onsite solar or wind energy aligns naturally with renewable output. Smart charging and vehicle-to-grid systems can further reduce peak pressures and help stabilise the grid, turning millions of EVs into a distributed storage and balancing asset.
But the economic benefit does not stop with just fuel and operational expenses.
73% of consumers saying they would change their consumption habits to reduce environmental impact (Nielsen, 2023)and 66% of global consumers saying they are willing to pay more for sustainable products (McKinsey, 2023). Eco-conscious branding is becoming a competitive advantage.
Electric fleets position companies as leaders in sustainability, attracting partnerships and favourable media coverage.
The UK government is investing heavily in trial eHGV technologies and infrastructure now, which are unlikely to be repeated.
HGV Logistics is fundamental to your core business, and investing now means your business is building capability (knowledge and infrastructure) that is going to be essential to your logistics solution in the future. Thus, delaying initial trialling now may cause create big problems and higher costs later when your choices are limited.
Combine autonomous vehicles with electric vehicle post the 2027
Key Challenges to Implementation
The Electric Vehicle Switch Business Opportunity
The UK’s road transport sector is one of the most significant sources of both energy demand and emissions.
Electrifying the UK’s vehicle fleet faces several barriers.
Vehicle Upfront costs for EVs, while falling, remain higher than ICE equivalents in some segments, particularly HGVs and specialist vehicles.
Charging infrastructure deployment is best done at the customer's loading bay, but this involves significant capital investment and electricity charging costs by the customers, compared to now, where fuelling was the responsibility of the logistics provider.
Customers wanting to charge infrastructure to their sites, find grid connection delays and costs can pose additional challenges. Large depots seeking to electrify dozens of vans or HGVs may require local reinforcement works, and typically face long queue times.
Additionally, standardisation of charging hardware, payment systems, and smart charging protocols is still incomplete, complicating roll-out at scale
On the operational model, currently, logistics providers maintain a fleet of vehicles rather than allocating specific ones to customers. This doesn’t work operationally during the transition because you don’t need different vehicle routes that have charging facilities.
Wrapped up in all of this are charging infrastructure considerations and electrical vehicle operational implications, including route planning and constraints, vehicle telematics, driver training, flat battery contingency plans, etc.
All of this is a challenge for customers. Moreover, it is not their core business (although their goods and services are critical); they have limited in-house expertise in this field, need to allocate substantial capital investment, the business case is tricky, and regulations are often unknown and complex, making a project to switch too hard.
What’s Possible with Government Reforms
With targeted reforms, the EV transition could accelerate significantly and deliver greater cost savings for businesses. Streamlined planning and funding for depot charging, faster grid connections, and clear regulatory support for vehicle-to-grid integration could reduce transition timelines by several years. A robust second-hand EV market would lower barriers for SMEs, while stronger workplace charging incentives would unlock synergies with rooftop solar and behind-the-meter renewables.
Government-backed programmes already point the way forward. The Innovate UK ZEHiD (Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator) programme is trialling large-scale depot charging and hydrogen refuelling solutions for heavy goods vehicles. These pilots are crucial to proving technical and commercial models at scale, and lessons learned should be mainstreamed quickly into planning rules, grid processes, and fleet transition support.
If these reforms are enacted, electrification could deliver over £30 billion in annual operating cost savings, cut oil imports by nearly 30 billion litres, and reduce UK transport emissions by tens of millions of tonnes CO₂e each year. Beyond cost and carbon, fleet electrification offers businesses a competitive edge: cleaner logistics, lower lifetime costs, and integration with the UK’s evolving clean power system
Unlocking the Potential for your business