In addition to its electric fleet of utilities, the La Poste group announced on March 18, 2022 that it will spend 400 million euros to convert its fleet of heavy goods vehicles to low-carbon energies by 2030. By this deadline, it will hopes to make 50% of medium- and long-distance journeys using low-carbon fueled heavy goods vehicles.
In 2010, La Poste coordinated a multi-company order group on the electric utility vehicle market. La Poste has taken a similar approach in the heavy goods vehicle sector. With one objective: that manufacturers expand their catalog and accelerate on alternative energies.
La Poste has studied the overall cost, the environmental impact, the possible autonomy and the availability of the materials and molecules of each of the alternative energies for its fleet of heavy goods vehicles. Namely: electricity, hydrogen, biogas and biofuel.
Biogas and biofuel before electricity
The group has concluded that it will first rely on transition energies such as biofuels and biogas, during the first phase of its program to decarbonize its fleet of heavy goods vehicles from 2022 to 2030.
“We will favor French biofuel by using mainly B100 from French rapeseed. At the same time, La Poste will deploy eight biogas refueling stations. They will be spread over the territory of our industrial platforms between 2023 and 2025. These stations will supply our fleet and those of our transport partners. This is what the natural gas (NGV) refueling station at the postal site in Chelles (77) has already been doing since 2021”, informs Christophe Baboin, deputy transport director of the Services-Mail-Parcels branch.
The group will switch to XTL biofuel before the end of 2022, with projects in Ile-de-France, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. And from 2030, La Poste will use electric trucks for medium-distance connections (250 to 400 km). Hydrogen heavy goods vehicles will cover long distance links (more than 400 km).
Therefore, in July 2022, La Poste will experiment with an electric truck in the Lyon region. Then, it will deploy three electric trucks in Ile-de-France in 2023.
By the end of 2022, La Poste will operate its first hydrogen truck. The group will also set up a TotalEnergies green hydrogen mobile station on the Thillay industrial platform (95). Finally, La Poste is participating in the “LaunchHY4Good” consortium led by France Supply Chain for the purchase of five hydrogen trucks from 2023.
