Ashcourt Group rolls out its first fully electric skip loaders

To help reduce the environmental impact of its waste management operations in the Hull area, the Ashcourt Group UK has taken delivery of its first two fully electric 18 tonne Renault Trucks E-Tech D Wide skip loaders. 

The two new E-tech D Wides, with Harsh HS14T 4x2 skip loader equipment, will be working in Ashcourt Group’s waste management operations in Hull, delivering and collecting skips from trade and domestic customers throughout the area and have the capacity to complete a full day’s work on a single charge. 

Ultra-quiet and 100% electric, the E-Tech D Wides are powered by 265 kWh E-Tech traction batteries with four battery packs of 66kW each located in the wheelbase, providing a maximum torque of 286Nm continuous and 530Nm peak. 

Both new electric vehicles will be charged at Ashcourt Group’s Waste Recycling Facility in Hull, which has been fitted with dedicated DC and AC charging points to service the company’s fleet of electric vehicles.

The Ashcourt Group recently made the switch to Renault Trucks across most of its divisions, with the electric vehicles further welcome additions to its ever-expanding Renault Trucks fleet.

Luke Stocks, Ashcourt Group’s Marketing Manager explains the company’s rationale behind the switch: “The Ashcourt Group has committed to reducing its environmental impact and sees the deployment of the new electric refuse trucks as a significant step towards achieving its goals. We chose electric trucks after successfully introducing electric vans and cars into our fleet last year, as well as trialling some electric plant equipment in our operations too. Seeing their performance and carbon footprint reductions first hand gave us the momentum to introduce our first two electric trucks into the Group. From our experiences to date, electric vehicles are something we will continue explore and we will monitor the performance of these new trucks very carefully.”

As Ashcourt Group already enjoyed a strong and established relationship with local Renault Trucks dealer, Thompson Commercials Ltd, partnering with them on their electric journey was the natural next step, as Luke explains: “Renault Trucks’ versatile vehicles have been great for us previously and their introduction of the D range always had our interest. We entered discussions about bringing in an all-electric truck to our fleet and began to learn more about their capabilities. With our experience with Thompsons and Renault Trucks, we trusted them to help us with our electric vehicle journey.”

The company’s waste management services were identified as the optimum starting point for introducing electric trucks because of the nature of journeys, which are shorter and in more urban areas. 

Luke Stocks says: “The electric vehicles suit this type of work as they’re making regular, smaller journeys to and from our waste recycling centre, and the truck’s manoeuvrability will help our drivers to navigate smaller streets and tighter access areas.” 

Luke explains how adopting electric vehicles will help reduce the Ashcourt Group’s environmental impact: “We’re constantly shaping our sustainability goals as a Group as we take each of our divisions separately when it comes to sustainability to better our analysis and create more accurate and achievable goals. Electric vehicles are a fantastic opportunity for us to reduce our carbon footprint and these Renault Trucks E-Tech D Wides are another big step forward for our waste management team.”

He concludes: “Although we are taking a calculated approach to introducing electric vehicles as we need to be sure they’re a good fit operationally given the diversity of what we do within the Group, we firmly believe that electric vehicles will continue to play a part in the Group’s future and with careful planning, we’re confident we will grow our EV fleet in years to come.”

The Ashcourt Group UK has taken delivery of its first two fully electric 18 tonne Renault Trucks E-Tech D Wide skip loaders, supplied by Thompson Commercials.