Global delivery giant DHL is to branch out into making its own electric delivery vehicles after the successful completion of a trial that began in 2013.

The ‘Streetscooter’ is an electric van with a range of 120 km, and has so far been used in service with its subsidiary, Deutsche Post GMBH – the German post office.  The trial began with 50 vehicles, but proved so popular that there are now almost 1,000 of the vans in service.

Now, DHL has said it plans to replace its fleet of Volkswagen Caddy vans with Streetscooters across Germany. It is increasing its production capacity to 5,000 vans a year, with plans to expand further and potentially sell or lease the Streetscooter vehicles to other urban delivery companies.

At the recent IAA Commercial Vehicle Show in Hannover, Deutsche Post and Streetscooter announced a larger model – the StreetScooter Work L, with double the carrying capacity of the smaller model. Deutsche Post DHL aims to have 170 of the larger vehicles on the road by the end of the year.

“We are purposely not reinventing the wheel. We do not produce a single component ourselves. Everything comes from a supplier,” said Win Neidlinger, director of business development at Streetscooter.

Streetscooter used a software program developed by PTC to talk to a network of 80 suppliers including Stuttgart-based Bosch, which provides the electric drivetrain, and Hella which makes the headlights.

“We designed it as a tool. So the fit and finish does not need to be as good as in a passenger car,” Neidlinger said.

The vans are designed to last 16 years, stay in use for six days a week and for 10 hours at a time. They need some particularly robust components, such as doors that can be opened and closed up to 200 times a day.

In January 2015, DHL put 50 Nissan e-NV200 electric vans to work in Milan and Rome.