A van named Sue

STAFF at the Scottish Natural Heritage office in Lerwick have taken delivery of a electric vehicle as part of a drive to cut carbon emissions.

Named Sue after office minutes referring to ‘electric use’ were mistyped as ‘electric sue’, the Peugeot Partner van, modified to run on lithium-ion batteries at a cost of £40,000, is the organisation’s first fully electric vehicle.

A full charge from a normal mains socket takes around eight hours and gives Sue a range of at least 65 miles depending on driving habits.

Staff are now getting into the habit of charging Sue in the garage overnight ready for use the following day.

Kevin Riley of the local SNH office said: “The electrics, the wipers, radio and lights work from the normal battery so the worst of the Shetland weather is not going to cause us to run out of power on the way home.

“There are no gears or clutch pedal, but unlike an automatic gearbox, the motor simply delivers an increasing amount of power relative to throttle pressure.”

Text has been added to the rear of the van to advise people that the vehicle is fully electric.

“Apart from the tyres, the vehicle is almost silent and staff have been asked to take extra care when performing manoeuvres because of this and an extra loud reversing alarm has been fitted by the manufacturer.

“The acceleration is surprisingly normal and the vehicle will go up to 60mph on the main roads. But with no motorways in Shetland this is all we’re ever going to need,” Mr Riley said

SNH staff in Lerwick are currently analysing the vehicle’s impact on electricity use. Depending on the tariff used the cost in electric is estimated at around 2p a mile.

The conversion costs were met by the Scottish government under a Transport Scotland initiative to help public bodies and local authorities meet the initial costs of low carbon transport. SNH paid the cost for the normal diesel vehicle, which were around £10,000.