THESE rather jazzy vehicles are on the streets of Somerset towns making much-needed food deliveries during the coronavirus crisis.

The electric vans have been rolled out by Asda at stores in Weston-super-Mare and Bridgwater, as well as at Bristol Whitchurch, to increase the capacity of the supermarket's Click and Collect service.

The vehicles can be charged on site and will be used to take goods from the store to Click and Collect lockers – a task previously carried out by home shopping vans.

By using these vehicles to fill the lockers, the vans are freed up to deliver even more orders to customers’ homes, Asda said.

Fully road legal, the vehicles can travel up to 65km in a single charge and will cover between 6km and 8km per day.

They have been built by Danish manufacturer Garia and weigh just 900kg.

The supermarket also has seven additional hybrid vehicles in use, to assist in stores where they will be required to travel longer distances to Click and Collect lockers.

Emma Ford, senior director of operations development for online grocery at Asda, said: “We are always looking for ways to innovate in areas where customers care, while still providing an excellent customer experience.

“These vehicles allow us to do this by increasing capacity for Click and Collect customers and enabling us to understand how we can better utilise electric vehicles across our fleet.”

“This is just one of many ways Asda is looking to improve sustainability in stores and has already cut energy usage by 20%. Currently, the retailer uses the same amount of electricity as it did in 2005, despite its estate being 200% bigger.”

Asda has also committed to reduce its scope 1 & 2 emissions by 50% by 2025 and is working with suppliers on sharing ideas and solutions to tackle climate change and food waste.

Part of American-based retail giant Walmart, Asda says it is committed to meeting the target to remove 1 billion tonnes of emissions globally as part of Project Gigaton.

The supermarket has already seen 179 Asda suppliers sign up to this commitment, saving a significant 29 million metric tonnes of emissions.