The most interesting part of the CV show for me was not looking at the huge trucks, but looking at the electric vehicles, and the hybrid on the Daf stand. And Smith Electric Vehicles showed its new Edison with a vehicle in Scottish & Southern Energy livery. This is an electric engine in housed in a Ford Transit shell.

Meanwhile Sainsbury's has ordered an initial eight electric vehicles for use in its Online home shopping delivery fleet. The retailer has also pledged to replace 20% of its urban delivery fleet with electric vehicles by September 2008 - and 100% of the fleet by 2010. Not far away was a stand showing an electric home delivery vehicle in Tesco livery.

At the other side of the exhibition, DAF was showing its hybrid 7.5-tonne vehicle, which should be available by the end of the year. While this will only go 2km on electricity alone, in combination with a diesel engine it could improve fuel consumption by 10%.

These two developments show how much a priority it is to create environmentally-friendly vehicles, particularly for urban delivery. Yes the vehicles will be expensive. But for urban delivery, these vehicles are the future.

What is more surprising is that the van market has not responded more quickly to the challenge of the environment. Yes, some are moving to 30% biodiesel (if you can find it) but where are the hybrid vans, or the electric vans from major manufacturers? Just having LPG vans is not a solution. Hopefully next year's CV Show will have more environmentally friendly vehicles on show.