The Arrival Van has achieved EU certification milestone

Arrival, the company pioneering a new method of designing and producing equitable electric vehicles (EVs) by local Microfactories, has announced that its Arrival Van has achieved EU certification and received European Whole Vehicle Type Approval (EUWVTA).

Arrival successfully completed all the required functional and safety testing to achieve EUWVTA, which is a critical step towards starting trials with customers in the coming months. The company is expected to commence production of the Van in Bicester in Q3 2022.

Denis Sverdlov, Founder and CEO at Arrival, said: “Our customers are tremendously excited about the Arrival Van and the unique offering it provides them. With an unrivalled user experience and lower total cost of ownership, it will help them accelerate their transition to zero-emission vehicles.

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 to make cleaner air for cities across the world.

Arrival’s zero-emission Van is purposefully designed to be an environmentally sustainable and economically efficient commercial electric vehicle compared to traditional Vans.

It features Arrival’s advanced in-house hardware and software technologies throughout the vehicle to create an elevated experience and provide operators with the data and tools they need to optimise the running of a fleet. The vehicle is made from Arrival’s unique lightweight composite materials that are designed to be recyclable, durable and lower in cost.

The Arrival Van will be manufactured using Arrival’s pioneering new method of production – using Microfactories placed in cities around the world. Microfactories are expected to have a lower Capex and cost of assembly, shorter commissioning time and be more environmentally friendly than traditional methods of production.

Arrival takes a modular and flexible approach to the design and production of its vehicles, which means the hardware and software are upgradable over a vehicle’s lifetime. The company will continually update and test its vehicles to deliver the best possible product and experience for customers.

Arrival has over 140k non-binding LOIs and orders for variants of the Arrival Van. The rapid growth of e-commerce has led to increasing demand for light commercial transport in cities and a resulting increase in both congestion and pollution. At the same time, there is an urgent need from cities, fleet operators and national governments to decarbonise operations in line with global public policy.

At COP26, more than thirty countries, dozens of states and cities agreed to work to guarantee that new cars and vans sold are zero-emission by 2035, and the EU passed this ruling last week.

Commercial vehicles cover higher mileage daily and are one of the most significant contributors to air pollution in Europe, accounting for 13% of road transport carbon pollution. The Arrival Van has been made to help accelerate the transition to electric vehicles, creating cleaner air for cities globally.