TNT will invest 170m euros ($215.8m) over the next few years in the Chinese domestic road delivery market, the company has announced. The move will enable TNT Hoau, TNT's road distribution arm in China, to enhance its day-definite road distribution network, introduce new services and hire additional staff. In the first half of 2010, sales of TNT Hoau's day-definite service exceeded those of the entire year of 2009, the company said. Service coverage was expanded early this year to 26 of China's biggest cities. The day-definite network now covers 800 depots throughout China, concentrating on the major economic regions, including the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Bohai Bay. To support its service, TNT Hoau has acquired 400 EU III-compliant trucks and set up a dedicated customer hotline. In a related development, TNT has acquired what it says is the industry's first fully electric vehicle fleet in China. The company has made an initial purchase of five electric delivery vehicles, powered by lithium batteries and featuring high-tech monitoring systems which record power consumption data during operation. The vehicles require only two and a half hours to be fully charged, and can travel more than 120 kilometers on a full charge.
