History of Electric Utility Vans

Electric utility vans have become highly developed in some senses and not very developed in others.  In order to understand the full history of the electric utility van, you need to understand both sides of this particular story.

The first side of the story starts in the middle of the 20^th century.  Around this time, a lot of experimentation was done on electrification of vehicles in the event of needing backups to the current fleet of combustible vehicles.  This was almost clairvoyant considering the oil shocks of the 1970s, but at the time it was little more than an idle interest in maybe creating a new class of roadworthy vehicles.  It was around this time that the first bits of experimentation with electric utility vans were done.  Because of this, the electric utility van has actually been around a lot longer historically than many of the other electric vehicles that you will see in the world today.

Unfortunately for the electric utility van however, the concept did not have many legs and was quickly dropped to the wayside.  Even during the 1970s, many parts of the western world did not take a second look at electric utility vans.  It is only in the current decade that they have really started to be looked at again by the major utility van manufacturers. Where things will go from here is anyone’s guess, but the high and low nature of the history of electric utility vans has certainly left our generation with a lot of catch-up work left to do.

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