The British electric vehicle developer Arrival has announced that the Arrival Van has achieved EU certification and received European Whole Vehicle Type Approval (EUWVTA).
Arrival successfully completed all the required functional and safety testing of the Arrival Van to achieve EUWVTA. This is a critical step towards starting trials with customers in the coming months after which Arrival is expected to start production of the electric van in Bicester, UK in Q3 2022.
Arrival’s van has drawn quite a lot of attention. Firstly because of the company’s modern approach to manufacturing with mini-factories that are as localised as possible, secondly for using ultra light materials for its electric vehicles at low costs. The British leasing company LeasePlan announced almost a year ago, that it wants to commission the British electric vehicle developer Arrival to build 3,000 electric transporters. The corresponding sales contract is to be concluded before the end of the third quarter of 2021. Series production of the Arrival transporter is to start in Q3/2022. This means trials will be starting immediately.
“This version of the vehicle we started in 2020, so to have passed all certification tests in this short time frame is a truly monumental achievement by the whole team. We now look forward to starting production later this year and delivering vehicles to our customers, in order to help to make cleaner air for cities all over the world,” said Denis Sverdlov, Founder and CEO at Arrival.
This is now the second vehicle from the electric vehicle maker that has been given EUWVTA approval. Earlier this year, the Arrival electric bus was given approval. Last summer, Arrival revealed that they had received an order for the electric buses from the US where is currently building abattery assembly plant and headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte is also where Arrival is locating its US headquarters, which is also to be the site of the second US micro-factory.
The approval for the electric van is also timely in terms of the British company’s North American plans. In the USA, Arrival will manufacture the 10,000 electric transporters that UPS ordered from the company in January 2020. With the news of the van’s approval, Arrival also just revealed that it has over 140k non-binding LOIs and orders for variants of the Arrival Van. This is not only attributed to the quality of the vehicle, but also because companies and governments around the world are having to speed up the transition of their fleets to meet their CO2 reduction commitments.
Keyword: Arrival Van given European vehicle approval