In January 2024, the first fully electric ambulance in Poland joined the fleet of the District Hospital in Złotoryja. Two months later, a similar vehicle started a two-year pilot program in the Bavarian Red Cross, and the London Ambulance Service added an electric Ford E-Transit to its fleet as a full-size ambulance, after years of testing lighter rapid response vehicles. Electrification is no longer a curiosity from industry trade fairs and appears today in the actual purchasing specifications of hospitals and medical transport operators. However, it is less obvious whether the path to an eco-friendly ambulance leads exclusively through a battery, or whether, at the current stage of technology development, a hybrid drive would be a better compromise. This text organizes what is actually known today about both directions and shows where their real technical limitations lie.
Where the interest in the electrification of ambulances in 2026 comes from
Electric delivery vans are no longer a rarity. The Mercedes eSprinter, eVito, Ford E-Transit, and Volkswagen e-Crafter are today standard items in manufacturers’ catalogs, not prototypes built to special order. For companies building eco-friendly ambulances, this means something important in practice. A base for conversion can be bought off the shelf today, just like a diesel, whereas a decade ago the same idea would require building the vehicle practically from scratch.
Added to this are the cost and environmental pressures that are realistically pushing public fleets toward electrification. Hospitals and local governments increasingly have to demonstrate emission reductions in their purchasing plans, and the lower costs of battery operation compared to diesel fuel and combustion engine servicing are becoming hard to ignore when planning a fleet budget for several years ahead. The quiet operation of an electric motor is an additional argument in a hospital environment, where ambulances enter the facility grounds dozens of times a day.
What the rescue team realistically gains from a quiet drive
All documented implementations point to a similar set of benefits. Rescue teams report fewer vibrations transmitted to the medical compartment, the absence of combustion engine noise, and a smoother ride. Charo Huesca, an emergency medical technician from the Spanish company Transvia MED, which was the first in Spain to put an electric Ford E-Transit into service, pointed out that the difference is especially noticeable when transporting newborns, where every vibration and every sound matters more than when transporting an adult patient. Transvia MED also points to a different acceleration characteristic of the electric motor compared to a diesel, which in a sudden dispatch situation can be felt from the very first meters. However, it is worth remembering that this is a benefit regarding ride quality, and today such implementations serve planned and inter-hospital transport, not the front line of emergency dispatches.
Range and weight determine the ambulance’s readiness for service
The declared ranges of electric ambulances vary depending on the base model and battery size. The Mercedes eVito used in Złotoryja offers about 300 km on a single charge with an 85 kW (116 HP) motor. The same motor powers the electric eSprinter, on the basis of which Mercedes, together with the company Ambulanz Mobile, built a prototype eKTW ambulance. Depending on the selected battery pack, its range is between approximately 120–168 km, while maintaining a gross vehicle weight of up to 3.5 tons. The Ford E-Transit, converted into an ambulance by the Spanish company Indusauto, reaches up to 317 km.
This last limitation, the weight up to 3.5 tons, results from a specific engineering decision. Mercedes deliberately used the smaller of the two available battery packs in the eKTW so that the vehicle could be driven by a driver with a category B driving license, without qualifications for heavy vehicles. Every additional kilogram of battery competes with the payload capacity already occupied by a stretcher, oxygen cylinders, a defibrillator, and other medical equipment, and this load in a type B or C ambulance is significantly greater than in a standard delivery van.
The actual range under emergency driving conditions with lights and sirens, with the air conditioning running and a full load of equipment, will usually be lower than the catalog value. The manufacturer’s numbers should be treated as a starting point for the fleet’s own tests.
Why hybrids in emergency medical services are hardly talked about
None of the vehicles described in this article is a hybrid. Złotoryja, Bavaria, London, and the offer of Ambulans Polska concern a fully electric drive. During the preparation of this material, it was not possible to find a single mass-produced hybrid ambulance offered by any manufacturer on the Polish or European market. This is a real market gap.
And there is much to talk about. The duty cycle of an ambulance differs from the typical duty cycle of a delivery van: long stops at the scene of an incident with the engine running to power the air conditioning and medical equipment, short urban stretches between dispatches, but also occasional longer inter-hospital routes, especially outside large agglomerations. A plug-in hybrid drive could theoretically combine quiet, zero-emission driving on an electric motor where it matters most (access to hospital grounds, transit near places requiring silence), with a combustion engine as a backup for longer routes or areas without a developed charging infrastructure. Limited range and dependence on charging stations are today the two most frequently pointed out weaknesses of fully electric vehicles, and a hybrid could address them without the need to completely rebuild the fleet and operational procedures. For now, this is a technical and logical argument. A specific product of this type simply does not exist yet.
Where in Europe electric ambulances are already running on a daily basis
Three implementations in Europe are today the best documented and show different stages of the same path, from a single transport vehicle, through a multi-year pilot, to a fleet of over a dozen ambulances.
| Place / operator | Base vehicle | Engine power | Range | Status |
| District Hospital in Złotoryja (Poland) | Mercedes eVito | 85 kW (116 HP) | approx. 300 km | In daily service since January 2024 |
| Bavarian Red Cross (Germany) | Ford E-Transit | – | – | Two-year pilot program since March 2024 |
| London Ambulance Service (Great Britain) | Ford E-Transit, previously Ford Mustang Mach-E | – | up to 317 km (E-Transit) | Mach-E since 2022 as rapid response vehicles, E-Transit as a full-size ambulance after positive tests |
The first fully electric ambulance in Poland went to Złotoryja
The vehicle cost about 600 thousand PLN and went to the hospital for the purpose of transporting patients between facilities and monitoring their basic condition during transit. Its equipment includes a defibrillator, a ventilator, an oxygen installation, and a cardiology chair with an access ramp. It is a transport vehicle for stable patients, not an ambulance responding to sudden emergencies, which is crucial for the rest of this article.
Two-year pilot of the Bavarian Red Cross
The electric E-Transit of the Bavarian Red Cross patrols the districts of Rhön-Grabfeld and Erlangen-Höchstadt as part of a program designed to provide data on the actual usefulness of the electric drive in more difficult field conditions, including outside a large city. This is the first electric ambulance in the history of this organization. The very fact that the project was spread over two years shows that even an experienced operator treats electrification as a process requiring real operational data.
How London went from rapid response vehicles to a full-size ambulance
London’s history of electrification began in 2022 with the purchase of 42 electric Ford Mustang Mach-Es, which serve as rapid response vehicles. Only the positive experiences from this program opened the way to the introduction of the electric E-Transit as a full-size ambulance, as part of a broader strategy to reach a zero-emission fleet. The London ambulance service therefore started with lighter vehicles on which it was easier to verify the reliability of the drive before reaching for the heaviest application.
Which type of ambulance, A, B or C, is closer to electrification
The EN 1789:2020+A1:2024 standard, implemented in Poland as PN-EN 1789+A1:2024-06, divides road ambulances into three categories according to the level of care they must provide. Type A, divided into A1 and A2, is a patient transport vehicle for those not expected to experience a sudden deterioration in health. Type B is an emergency ambulance, adapted for basic treatment and monitoring. Type C is a mobile intensive care unit, with full equipment for advanced treatment during transport.
Comparing this with the implementations described earlier, a clear pattern can be seen. Both the ambulance from Złotoryja and the Type A1 vehicle built on the electric Nissan Leaf offered by the company Ambulans Polska fit into the segment of stable patient transport. None of the electric vehicles identified in regular service during the research for this material is a Type C ambulance.
| Type | Level of care | Typical equipment | Proximity to electrification today |
| A (A1/A2) | Stable patient transport | Basic monitoring, stretcher, oxygen cylinder | The only segment with electric vehicles already in regular operation |
| B | Emergency ambulance | Basic treatment and monitoring, defibrillator | Tested at the prototype stage (eKTW), no mass-produced implementations |
| C | Mobile intensive care | Ventilator, advanced monitoring, extensive medicine cabinet | Furthest from electrification, increasing energy load and weight of equipment |
This is no coincidence. Type C equipment draws current continuously and significantly, and additional cabinets, a second seat for a paramedic, and a larger medical module mean that such a vehicle, even on a diesel engine, approaches the limit of the permissible gross vehicle weight. Adding a battery pack to this is a much more difficult engineering task than in the case of a lighter Type A ambulance.
Independent power supply for the medical compartment is worth checking with the manufacturer
In both described implementations, both in Złotoryja and in the eKTW prototype, two separate control units were used, which separate the power supply of the medical compartment from the traction battery of the vehicle. Thanks to this, the defibrillator, ventilator, or oxygen installation operate independently of the charge state of the battery responsible for propulsion, and life-saving equipment retains its own power supply even when the traction battery is almost depleted. This solution does not appear by itself when switching from diesel to electric drive. It requires conscious design by the company performing the conversion. For a fleet manager, this means one specific question for each potential supplier. Is the power supply for the medical compartment physically separated from the propulsion, or is it only described as independent in marketing materials?
What to verify before choosing a hybrid or electric vehicle for a rescue fleet
Before such a vehicle makes its way into a tender specification, it is worth checking a few points that rarely appear in manufacturers’ brochures.
The following list applies to both fully electric vehicles and future hybrids, because the same questions make sense regardless of the chosen direction.
- Actual range verified under emergency driving conditions with lights and sirens, with the air conditioning running and a full load of medical equipment, as a supplement to the declared WLTP test result.
- The impact of the battery weight on the gross vehicle weight and on the required driving license category for drivers.
- Availability and charging time at the base and on inter-hospital routes, along with a contingency plan in case of a power outage.
- Physical separation of the medical compartment’s power supply from the traction battery, confirmed in the technical documentation.
- The range of the regional service network for high-voltage components, verified outside the manufacturer’s headquarters.
- Compliance of the configuration with the required type of ambulance according to the EN 1789 standard, established before selecting the base model.
The same set of questions makes sense regardless of whether the fleet is considering a fully electric vehicle today, or is looking at a hybrid as a transitional solution for the coming years. If you are planning the composition of your fleet for a longer perspective and wondering which segment of eco-friendly ambulances is actually suitable for testing with an electric drive right now, the technical team at KG Special Performance, working daily with the classification and homologation of Type A, B, and C vehicles, will be happy to advise on choosing a configuration tailored to real operating conditions.
