Electric vans, buses and bin lorries: 348 vehicle tenders and awards added to EVTenders
Date Published
We have added 348 notices to EVTenders for electric vehicles bought by UK public bodies: vans, cars, buses and trucks, going back to 2018. Most of them are awards, so together they show who has been electrifying their fleets, how they buy, and who supplied them.
You won't find most of them by searching for EV. Only 7 of the 348 say "EV" or "electric vehicle" in their title, and 107 don't mention electric, EV or zero emission there at all: they name the vehicle instead, such as a Goupil G4, a Vivaro-e or a LEVC VN5. We found them by reading what each notice buys, and over the coming months we'll be looking at this data in more detail.
What public bodies have been buying
- Vans, the biggest share: 194 of the 348, from a single van for a parks team to council-wide replacements.
- Cars: 62, from pool cars to a Nissan Leaf the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office bought for the British Embassy in Santiago.
- Buses: 34, many of them paid for through the government's ZEBRA scheme for zero-emission buses.
- Trucks and specialist vehicles: 19, from refuse trucks to street sweepers.
- Around the vehicles: 39 more, for bus services, consultancy and charging.
Electric vehicle awards by year
With these added, EVTenders holds 706 awards for electric vehicles. Since 2021 they have run at around 100 a year, peaking at 138 in 2022: 2026 already has 116.
How they buy: TPPL and CCS frameworks
Mostly small purchases through frameworks. 113 of the new notices are call-offs from The Procurement Partnership's (TPPL) vehicle frameworks, by 52 different councils and public bodies, and 32 more came through Crown Commercial Service frameworks. The typical stated value is about £80,000.
The busiest buyers among them are Newcastle City Council (14 notices), Denbighshire County Council (13), Nottingham City Council (9) and Durham County Council (8).
Some of the bigger buys
- Buses for Nottingham. Nottingham City Council bought electric buses from Pelican Engineering in two rounds under ZEBRA, £4.8 million in 2022 and £4.9 million in 2023, both "100% grant funded".
- Buses for Cornwall. Cornwall Council bought seven electric buses from Wrightbus for £2.7 million with ZEBRA2 funding, awarded in January 2025.
- Bin lorries for Brighton. Brighton & Hove City Council bought four 27-tonne electric refuse trucks from Electra for £2.4 million in 2022.
- Vans by the hundred in Leeds. In 2019 Leeds City Council ordered up to 200 electric Renault Kangoo vans and up to 120 Nissan e-NV200s, both from Lookers.
- Defra's vans. The Environment Agency set up a call-off with Toyota for electric vans across the Defra group, worth up to £9.5 million, buying as petrol and diesel vans reach the end of their lives.
- Ambulance service vans. London Ambulance Service bought eVito Tourer vans for conversion, £926,000, in 2025.
Around the vehicles
Transport Scotland hired Mott MacDonald to advise its Zero Emission Trucks Taskforce, and the Department for Transport commissioned Frazer-Nash to assess weights and dimensions for zero-emission HGVs. Stirling Council had Connected Kerb install chargers at eight sites.
One honest note
These notices are awarded or closed. They are intelligence about who buys electric vehicles and who supplies them, rather than opportunities you can still bid on. We mark the stage on every notice.