Waterlooville Asda introduces electric vehicles to allow more home deliveries while cutting carbon emissions

Asda will use electric vehicles at its Waterlooville store to increase capacity across its online delivery and Click and Collect services as it helps to feed the nation.

The vehicles can be charged on site and will be used to take goods from the store to Click and Collect lockers – a task previously carried out by home shopping vans.

By using these vehicles to fill the lockers, the vans are freed up to deliver even more orders to customers’ homes.

The move sees the supermarket able to collectively increase the number of potential Click and Collect slots they are able to offer from over 7,000 per week to more than 34,000 across the 48 stores that have received the electric vehicles.

Fully road legal, the vehicles can travel up to 65km in a single charge and will cover between 6km and 8km per day.

The supermarket also has seven additional hybrid vehicles in use, to assist in stores where they will be required to travel longer distances to Click and Collect lockers.

Emma Ford, senior director of operations development said: ‘We are always looking for ways to innovate in areas where customers care, while still providing an excellent customer experience.

‘These vehicles allow us to do this by increasing capacity for Click and Collect customers and enabling us to understand how we can better utilise electric vehicles across our fleet.’

This is just one of many ways Asda is looking to improve sustainability in stores and has already cut energy usage by 20 per cent. Currently, the retailer uses the same amount of electricity as it did in 2005, despite its estate being 200 per cent bigger.

Asda has also committed to reduce its scope one and two emissions by 50 per cent by 2025 and is working with suppliers on sharing ideas and solutions to tackle climate change and food waste.