There’s life in the old dog yet: first, electric van producer StreetScooter (Aachen, Germany; www.streetscooter.eu) was recently split into production and fleet management. Now, the company’s parent, German postal service Deutsche Post, has sold 90% of its production division StreetScooter Engineering to Luxembourg-based automotive holding company Odin Automotive (www.odinev.com), with the remaining 10% to remain with the group. At the same time, Deutsche Post has placed an order for 3,500 additional vehicles.

Odin Automotive, a consortium led by automotive manager and financial expert Stefan Krause, aims to make the electric transporter, which was designed with numerous plastics components suppliers, marketable across the globe. The mission is to convert the so-called last mile for parcel services to emission-free operation. In addition to the current contract production at Neapco Germany in Düren, a second assembly line originally planned by Deutsche Post is to be built by 2023 in the US .

All of this will likely only be happening temporarily under the StreetScooter name, which is not part of the transaction: in the medium term, Odin plans to rebrand the business.

In the meantime, current production in Düren has been reorganised by John Burton, the former General Motors production manager and Odin’s current head of production. The word is that production costs are to be reduced by 30% in the medium term, and the vehicles’ range is to be increased. Odin also intends to offer the vehicle with various body types in future. The most important point, however, is probably that the exit of Deutsche Post will also make the electric delivery vehicles interesting for that company’s rivals, who have so far been reluctant to buy from the competition.

Deutsche Post had said previously it would cease production by the end of 2020 and convert the remaining company into a pure operator for its e-vehicle fleet.