Bursting at the seams: T&BB report on Yutong’s electric truck and Pelican’s operations in Castleford

By Bradley Osborne – 22nd July 2025

Last year, Britain was the largest market for electric buses in Europe, a position that it owes in large part to a small company in the Yorkshire town of Castleford. In 2013, Pelican was appointed as the official UK and Ireland importer for Chinese manufacturer Yutong and began selling its buses and coaches; in 2020, the first battery electric Yutong vehicles were deployed in Britain. In the last decade, 2,000 Yutong vehicles were sold through Pelican, of which over 800 are fully electric. For those familiar with Pelican solely as an importer of buses and coaches, the company’s announcement that it would introduce a medium-duty truck may have come as a surprise. In fact, as I learned on a recent trip to the company’s premises in the north of England, the decision to enter the electric truck market represents a return to Pelican’s roots as the oldest family-owned truck dealership still in operation in Britain.

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China market rebound continues in June

By Jim Gibbins – 18th August 2023