DHL spent around £14M on them for their yard at Bawtry around 4yrs ago, this included installation of the LNG filling station. From day one not a day went by that a truck wasn’t back at the dealers, then a couple of years later one of the crucial parts manufacturers for the LNG system went out of business, thus rendering several trucks without spare parts, so they where slaved to provide parts for the remainder. As time went on they lost several contracts/customers, there where redundancies and downsizing of the fleet, shipping out half the trucks to other site, and so the mileage piled on (average 900k+) the engines became tired, and the LNG would shut down and the trucks would revert back to diesel as soon as they sensed any real load ie: dragging uphill. Which is ok except that these volvos only have a 150ltr diesel tank, so they spend more time running on diesel then gas. So as a driver your constantly thinking about where to refuel for diesel, especially as DHL only use BP cards. When I left the yard before Xmas, instead of replacing the trucks after 3-4 years they’ve extended the lease by 1 year+ So the fun continues, which is no surprise as last I’ve heard was that the yard was sold to a property Co, and is eventually closing/moving to a brand new depot/warehouse being built at Worksop opposite wilkos circa 2020.
Now as I’m doing a bit of limping for a famous orange diy chain, I’ve seen that they’ve setup a new distribution warehouse alongside the other at Swindon, and AFAIK they’ve got themselves 20+ new Volvo LNG trucks, and knowing what I know I just chuckled to myself when I saw them, and speaking to one of their drivers yesterday while I was at Ipswich, I was told that within the first week half of these new truck have broken down and are sitting at the dealers awaiting repair.