
By avtur3
We know that London is cracking the vehicle emissions whip hard having seen the recent introduction of the ULEZ on the Congestion Charge area and knowing that the ULEZ will extend considerably in 2021.

Well here is another example of the sensitivity of vehicle emissions in 'the city'. Camden council have banned ice cream vans from 40 streets in the borough citing emissions and the popularity of the vans with children as the reason; other boroughs are looking at similar restrictions. Ice cream vans keep their engines running at tickover all the time to run the cooling equipment.

Some boroughs already operate a 15-minute limitation on the operation of existing ice cream vans, with no return inside 24 hours. There is talk of perhaps installing electric hook up points which would allow the vans to operate without the engine running to offer more flexibility.

Now I can see the argument for this and at a certain level, it makes sense. However when comparing the number of ice cream vans with the number of black cabs then I find it a little difficult to make sense of this. Yes, I get the 'popular with children' bit but surely the sheer number of diesel black cabs must totally outweigh the output of ice cream vans by a factor of many thousands ....
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By PaulB
stevelup wrote:They are usually disgusting old things with noisy polluting stinky old engines left idling constantly.

I'm struggling to take issue with this to be honest.

Isn't it a separate engine? It was in the ice cream van that our next door neighbour bought on a whim when I was a kid. It ran on paraffin.

If so, couldn't the engine be replaced with a battery as basically it's a freezer and pump?
Mate's sister has one,- plugs it into the house overnight,transfers stock from chest-freezer to van before departing to regular pitch. usually sells most, if not all van-stock before the on-board storage starts allowing the stock to melt. Fridge compressor can also be driven from the engine, it only takes ~20 minutes' running topull the temp. back down,if needed.....similar operation with her previous one.
Aren't most ice-cream vans old Commers and Bedfords from the 1960s-70s ? For some of the kids that's probably novelty enough as it is , isn't it ?

Perhaps the answer is to really go right back to the old bicycle type of ice cream chest on wheels . They are quite trendy at outdoor gatherings these days.

Check out this guy I've been into his place a few times , he completely restores old ice-cream bikes , coke machines , garage memorabilia and loads more .

The future is behind us . :D
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By Sooty25
Converting the freezer power side of things to battery maintained so no engines required would be easy. I suspect there is more to this than meets the eye.