Electric vans spend shortest time in the service bay

Company Fleet  Electric Vehicles 

Electric van take up has been accelerating in the past few months, but remains stubbornly behind schedule.

The latest SMMT results for November 2025 show that electric van sales increased for the second consecutive month after four months of decline, rising by 37%, in part supported by the Plug-in Van Grant, which will now continue for the next financial year. Market share also rose, from 6.1% to 7.7%.

However, this is still behind the government’s mandated 10% of each brand’s new van registrations to be zero emission this year.

Clearly electric vans still have some way to go to gain acceptance from drivers, ranging from the sole trader to larger fleet operators.

Perceived barriers tend to be around the range on offer once fully loaded and how that might affect the operating cycle, to worries about charging.

“These are very real concerns operators have about changing from diesel to electric vans,” says Operation Director of Gateway2Lease, Rob Marshall. “It’s a more complex issue than a fleet changing its cars to electric. But I think it would be a good idea for van fleet operators to consider again what vans in their fleet could be swapped to electric, especially with the lower operating costs of e-LCVs.”

Among the advantages, Rob points out, are the better service times, which have been corroborated by the latest data from epyx, taken from its 1link Service Network service, maintenance and repair (SMR) platform commonly used to book repair times.

Shorter service times for eLCVs

According to the data from epyx, electric vans spend a shorter amount of time in the service bay compared to combustion engined vans or hybrid vans.

The epyx information looked at performance across the first four years of vehicle life. These are the results it found, with e-LVCs leading the way in years one to three.

Year one

• The average servicing times for electric vans was 0.74 hours
• The average servicing times for combustion vans was 1.05 hours
• The average servicing times for hybrid vans was 1.15 hours

Year two

• The average servicing times for electric vans was 0.89 hours
• The average servicing times for combustion vans was 1.15 hours
• The average servicing times for hybrid vans was 1.39 hours.

Year three

• The average servicing times for electric vans was 1.12 hours
• The average servicing times for combustion vans was 1.17 hours
• The average servicing times for hybrid vans was 1.41 hours.

Year four

• The average servicing times for combustion vans was 1.19 hours
• The average servicing times for electric vans was 1.41 hours
• The average servicing times for hybrid vans was 1.42 hours.

Tim Meadows, the Chief Commercial Officer at epyx, provides some commentary on the figures:

“It’s important to put some caveats around this data,” he says. “While 1link Service Network is used by fleet operators totalling more than five million vehicles to manage their SMR needs, the numbers of electric and hybrids vans on the platform are relatively low – they have only really entered the market in the last couple of years. That should be kept in mind when looking at the data.

“However, what we are seeing so far is very much in line with what has long been predicted by SMR experts. There is a strong technical argument that while electric vans are more expensive to acquire, their reduced number of wear parts should mean that they spend less time being serviced, and the data is bearing that out in general terms.

“It’s interesting to look at the performance of hybrids, too. Of course, these are vehicles that use two forms of motive power with the added complication that brings, so are potentially going to need more workshop attention, and the figures are bearing this out.”

Rob Marshall adds: “We fully understand that electric vans might not meet the requirement of all operators at the moment, but we believe that where they can be incorporated, the lower running costs, greater quietness and ease of operation will start to win over some of those EV sceptics.

“As ever, we are happy to provide advice to our customers across the range of vans we offer, from electric to combustion, to ensure they lease the correct van for their needs.”

The range of Gateway2Lease van leasing offers can be found here.

---

View our latest blog posts