414 miles, one van, one week: what we learned about going electric

At Custom Heat & Cool, we’re always looking at how we can run our fleet more efficiently, more sustainably, and in a way that genuinely works for our engineers. So this month, we decided to stop speculating about electric vans and actually put one to the test.

One of our engineers, Matt, spent a full working week driving a fully electric van alongside his normal day-to-day workload — real jobs, real customers, real diary changes. Here’s what we found.

The trial

The goal wasn’t to review the van itself, but to understand what switching to electric would actually mean for how we operate. Over the week, the van covered 414 miles — an average of 83 miles a day — and handled the workload without a single reliability or performance issue.

Matt’s verdict on the van itself was positive. It was comfortable, practical, and had more than enough load space for his tools and equipment for the day. From a driving experience, it stacked up well against a standard diesel van.

The real story was charging

This is where things got interesting. Because the trial vehicle had a smaller battery and limited range, Matt needed to charge once or twice a day — usually at the start of the day, sometime during it, and again in the evening. Charging stops typically took 30–55 minutes, though one longer session ran to around 89 minutes.

Relying on public rapid chargers throughout the week cost a total of £113.53. For comparison, a diesel van doing similar work typically costs us £50–£55 a week in fuel. On the surface, that’s a meaningful gap — but it comes with an important caveat: public rapid charging is the most expensive way to charge an EV.

If Matt had been able to charge overnight at home instead, the cost drops dramatically — closer to £5 a night on an off-peak tariff. That’s the real headline from this trial: the economics of running an EV depend almost entirely on where and when you charge it, not on the vehicle itself.

Where it got tested

The trial wasn’t all smooth sailing, and that’s exactly the point of running one. Midway through the week, Matt’s diary changed at short notice and he was allocated an extra job late in the afternoon. The van had enough charge to get home, but not enough range to fit in the additional job first — meaning an unplanned charging stop, a later finish, and a later appointment for the customer.

It’s a small thing on paper, but it highlights a real operational question: how much does reduced range affect our flexibility when work is fast-moving and diaries shift day to day? For a business like ours, where engineers often pick up last-minute jobs, that’s not a trivial consideration — customer experience matters more to us than almost anything else, and any vehicle that risks a later arrival or a rushed appointment needs to earn its place in the fleet.

We’d also note that the trial van was only lightly loaded — a few tool bags, a ladder, and everyday kit — rather than fitted out like a fully-equipped installation van. A heavier load would likely mean a shorter real-world range, which reinforces a broader point: for electric vans to work well in trades like ours, they need a genuine real-world range of 350+ miles.

What this tells us

A few takeaways stood out from the trial:Charging location changes everything. The gap between public rapid charging and overnight home charging is huge — and it’s really the deciding factor in whether an EV makes financial sense, not the vehicle itself.

• Range is the practical sticking point. For work where diaries can shift at short notice, a genuine real-world range of 350+ miles would give far more confidence and flexibility than the smaller-battery van we trialled.
• Vehicle load affects range. A lightly loaded van performed well, but a fully kitted-out one would likely see reduced range — worth factoring in for anyone comparing trial results to day-to-day reality.
• There’s a workable financial mechanism for home charging. HMRC’s tax-free reimbursement rate for home EV charging on a company van makes overnight charging a realistic option where it’s available.
• Hybrids look like an interesting middle ground, worth exploring further for anyone not ready to go fully electric.

Why we’re sharing this

We know we’re not the only business in our industry thinking about this. Fleet decisions like this affect margins, engineer experience, and customer service — and there’s a lot of noise out there about EVs that doesn’t always reflect what happens when you actually put one to work.

Our approach has always been to test things properly before we commit, and we wanted to share what we found in case it’s useful to others weighing up the same decision. We’ll keep trialling, keep learning, and keep sharing what we find.

Thanks to Matt Venables for putting the van through its paces, and to Tom for stepping in for a photo alongside it outside the office.