One Year On The Road: From First Unit to Fleet Wide

October 9th, 2024. Cold Chain Hub, Birmingham. We unveiled the first production Endurance unit to the industry. Awards were won. Conversations started. Press coverage followed.

Then November arrived.

DFDS took delivery of the first 10 Endurance units from our Leatherhead facility. That's when operations began. Those battery and solar-powered units needed to work on Scotland runs, multi-drop routes, and frozen cargo. No special treatment or contingency plans. Just the same demands are placed on every refrigeration unit in their fleet.

Everything that followed started there.

Building The Infrastructure Nobody Sees

Fleet operators see units, but they don't see the team and facility required to support them.

Manufacturing first. January 2025 brought facility expansion at Leatherhead, Surrey, creating 75 manufacturing jobs. But numbers don't tell the full story. We recruited engineers with decades of experience from the automotive and aerospace sectors. People who'd solved production challenges at scale. Who understood precision manufacturing. Who knew how to build quality into every assembly process.

Co-locating engineering and production meant rapid iteration became standard practice. Customer feedback from morning routes influenced afternoon production decisions. This proximity matters when you're scaling alongside customer growth, ensuring capacity exists when fleets need it.

You also cannot support fleets from an engineering lab.

That is why we have been focused on recruiting certified technicians across the UK regions and partnering with maintenance specialists, then training them specifically on Endurance. Not just generic refrigeration knowledge. Understanding of battery systems, solar integration, and the benefits of a cloud-connected system with remote diagnostics.

Response networks were established strategically. Wherever a customer goes, we will support that journey. Coverage spans from Scotland to the South West. Regional technicians backed by Sunswap’s in-house aftermarket and care team. But crucially, we have seen that the advantage of remote diagnostics systems is that they provide real-time monitoring, while when physical intervention is needed, teams arrive with the knowledge and parts to resolve issues rapidly.

Fleet After Fleet

Tesco deployed units at their Peterborough depot in February 2025, operating across frozen, chilled and ambient temperature requirements. It is a significant moment when the UK's largest retailer validates electric refrigeration technology in their fleet.

Bannister Transport had committed its entire 40-trailer fleet a year earlier. Now those units are being delivered. The world's first fully electric refrigerated fleet moved from commitment to reality.

"The Sunswap Endurance unit performs no differently to the diesel unit," said Carl Horsborough, Fleet Manager at Bannister Transport. "Whether it be draw down times to temperature, maintaining temperature, operationally, there's no difference at all. The biggest advantage is the fact that we're not putting 400 litres of diesel in every week."

Samworth Brothers took five units for their fleet upgrade. A quarter of their refrigerated trailer fleet (https://sunswap.co.uk/sunswap-will-fulfil-a-quarter-of-samworth-brothers-refrigerated-trailer-fleet-upgrade-in-2024/). The UK food manufacturer produces chilled and ambient foods for millions across Britain daily. Their requirement wasn't just zero emissions. It was proving the system could run their operations without special treatment.

Staples Vegetables added Endurance to their fleet to support their Ffesh produce loaded at harvest temperatures. Dave Baker, Transport Manager, put it directly: "Our loads go in at temperature and I believe these are holding the temperature as good as what the diesels are. It's driver-friendly.”

Cranswick’s four units after testing performance against HVO alternatives. They didn't just compare us to diesel. They compared us to their existing lower-carbon solution, and electric came out on top on both emissions and operating costs.

Birds Eye deployed units for the transport of frozen food between its Lowestoft production facility and its Wisbech distribution hub. The challenge? Maintaining precise frozen temperatures for thousands of tonnes of product annually while eliminating 24 tonnes of CO2 from their supply chain. The units delivered.

Ocado added Endurance to their double-deck trailers in July. Their online grocery operation runs tight temperature requirements across fresh and frozen goods. Each unit saves 20.5 tonnes of CO2 annually while supporting their 2040 net-zero target. Double-deck trailers mean twice the temperature zones, twice the operational demands. The system handled it. Endurance is now depended on by leading household names for delivery day after day.

Beyond UK Roads

While UK operations scaled, European expansion began through our partnership with TIP Group, an equipment services provider operating across 18 countries. Their pan-European reach provided the distribution network for electric refrigeration needed to move beyond single-market deployment. DLG (Daily Logistics Group) operations started in the Netherlands, establishing our first mainland European presence.

Manufacturing capacity at Leatherhead was built with expansion in mind. UK production supporting international deployment.

What Actually Changed

October 2024: One production unit on display at a trade show.

October 2025: Over 100 units have rolled out of our Leatherhead facility now with units operating daily across major retailers and food producers. European partnerships established and delivering.

The question has changed. No longer are we asked "can electric refrigeration work?". Instead, it’s "which routes first?"

That shift happened because units are out there performing every day, from frozen routes to  Scotland, urban multi-drops and chilled overnight routes.

Diesel refrigeration dominated cold chain transport for decades because it worked. Electric refrigeration is replacing it for the same reason.

So what comes next? More fleets will follow. More countries will come online. The technology works. Now it scales.

That's what this year proved.

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