Asda orders 25 delivery vans
The Blue Ocean home delivery pods are designed and built by British engineering firm Penso.
Manufactured from a blend of carbon fibre and recycled plastic, the triple-compartment lightweight pods can transport approximately the same weight of goods in two journeys, that a traditional vehicle carries in three.
Asda VP of online grocery home shopping said: “I’m really excited to launch this fleet of innovative and sustainable grocery home shopping vans which will make a real difference to cutting our carbon footprint.
“As a business, we are constantly looking at ways we can reduce our carbon emissions, not just because we know that sustainability is important to our customers and colleagues, but because all of us have a responsibility, and it’s just the right thing to do, making improvements wherever we can.”
Key to the near 400kg increase in payload capacity is Penso’s composite sandwich panel technology, which features 5,000 recycled plastic bottles in the structural core of every pod.
The new Asda fleet has been supplied on a 3.5-tonne medium wheelbase, front-wheel-drive, Mercedes-Benz Sprinter chassis. They have initially been deployed in areas where drivers face increased mileage to reach customers in remoter areas, such as parts of the east coast of England.
