Ford, German Postal Service Form EV Joint Venture

Ford’s German wing teams with the country’s postal service to produce all-electric mail-delivery trucks.

Deutsche Post subsidiary StreetScooter and Ford of Germany are entering a partnership for production of the trucks that launches in July.

Deutsche Post hopes to build on its experience in the smaller light-commercial-vehicle segment by designing and producing the emissions-free StreetScooter.

The new, larger battery-electric truck will use the Ford Transit chassis as its base and will be fitted with a body construction meeting specifications for Deutsche Post and the DHL Paket international parcel-delivery service.

The joint venture expects to produce at least 2,500 vehicles by the end of 2018 to boost the postal service’s city-delivery fleet. This volume would make the JV the largest manufacturer of battery-electric medium-duty delivery vehicles in Europe.

“I consider this partnership another important boost for electro-mobility in Germany,” says Jürgen Gerdes, member of the Deutsche Post executive board. “It will relieve the inner cities and increase the people’s quality of life. We will continue working on completely carbon-neutral logistics.”

Steven Armstrong, Ford group vice president and president-Europe, Middle East and Africa, adds: “E-mobility and innovative traffic solutions for urban areas are key focuses for us as we transform our business to meet future challenges.

“As the leader in commercial vehicles in Europe, this partnership plays perfectly to our strengths, and in StreetScooter and the Deutsche Post DHL Group we have a partner with enormous competence and a worldwide network.”

In addition to the new assembly line, current production of StreetScooter models will be expanded. Output is expected to reach 20,000 units per year at plants in Aachen and North Rhine-Westphalia.