I see theres an electric car thread, but no electric van one (I did search so apologies if there is!)
I know nothing and but am interested as car is now old and not ULEZ, so been looking for a while and dont know whats good.
Does anyone have good website recommendations? Also roughly what do I need to lay down for deposit & monthly costs, roughly?
Im after a combi really as need it to do everything as will only have one vehicle? from what I can see there isn’t one? Look forward to any advice. Ta

Our company has been trialing E vans, Renault Traffics I think.

real world range fully loaded is said to be 35 miles, so utterly useless!

Sorry I can’t contribute anything positive.

You’d think that vans would have a big battery under the floor. My work scheme has a Berlingo that does 180 miles, so you would think good range is possible?

There’s a combi version of the Peugeot Expert. Only know because I’m idly interested myself and noticed it on their website the other day. Just over 200 miles with the larger of the 2 battery options.

The Nissan NV200 also has 5 or 7 seat combi versions. but it’s only got a 40kwh battery so combined range is 124 miles, that wouldn’t be enough for me.

In terms of costs etc. I’ve not got that far. I assume the quoted prices are ex-VAT as the websites are explicitly aimed at business buyers.

edit – some of the quoted ranges are really poor because they’re aimed at last mile delivery mainly, not mile munching. It’s starting to change, (see my above suggestions) but of you are loading them up with heavy batteries, you reduce the payload.

Very little in the way of big vans and/or sensible range.
I’m hanging onto my diesel one for a while yet, maybe until hydrogen becomes a viable alternative (It seems to work for larger vehicles, Aberdeen’s buses for example, JCB have some diggers which run on it, but lack of refueling is an issue just now)
Anyway, I think Ford do a Transit hybrid if that’s any use?

They’ll be beyond my pocket for a while. Don’t have a drive or a lamppost anyway.

Ford do a DCIV version of the Custom PHEV. Qualifies for ULEZ etc and has a petrol generator so no range anxiety – all electric range only 35 miles though so really depends what sort of driving you do! Would love one as it would be perfect for me but a) they’re still really expensive and b) probably not as nice to drive as a much cheaper diesel one!

We’re still looking at gen 1 vans really though, considering Ford have just invested massively in an EV factory in Germany & also teamed up with VW, personally I’m going to wait a couple of years and see what the next version is like!

Amazon are using Mercedes-Benz eSprinter vans. 80+ mile range.

considering Ford have just invested massively in an EV factory in Germany

And announced a 230million investment at Halewood yesterday!

You’re right though, when VW get their collaboration with Ford vehicle out, that could be brilliant. Also, just noticed that the Citroen Berlingo electric van is out very soon. 171 miles range in that one doesn’t get me to Ambleside and back without a charge, I think that’d be my benchmark.

https://www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk/en/electric-vans/id-buzz.html

From VW themselves, coming 2022. based on the same platform as the ID3 and ID4 so expecting similar figures.

they have teased camper and day van/combi type things, not just builder-base-specs, so hoping they are released at the same time.

I bought an electric Kangoo earlier this year for my business. 2013 model in great condition. Only £7k and hardly any miles on the clock, the reason being the range is so little, you couldn’t do loads of miles even if you wanted to!

I reckon we get 50 miles range on a good day, but for business use it’s perfect as it only does short trips and can be charged where it’s parked 90% of the time.

It’s really nice to drive. Smooth, quiet, auto. Bristol is supposedly bringing in an emissions charge next year so I figured we’d get ahead of the game, and hopefully it’ll hold its value.

2013 is prehistoric by EV standards, I think later years have larger batteries and support faster charging methods. Also the Nissan is the only comparable small van out there but they are considerably more expensive to buy second hand.

car is now old and not ULEZ

Bizzarely my 300bhp, 3 litre diesel is ULEZ compliant

Presumably due to having adblue and being an MHEV – the latter part seemingly doing next to nothing to aid the vehicles fuel consumption

So still early days then? I drive so little I can soak up the odd uLEZ, so maybe wait for a while? I quite liked look of this, little plastic??
https://www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk/en/new-vehicles/new-multivan.html

The main problem is the weight of the battery, compounded by the extra energy needed to move a van. A Merc Sprinter has 1000kg load capacity – an 85kwh pack would eat up over half of that, as well as have somewhere near half the range of that same pack in a family car.

Until battery technology improves, there isn’t much way around it.

I manage a sales team who sell the E Sprinter/Vito/Tourers. The tourer is a very good product and the market has taken them on board. The range is good enough and the charging speeds acceptable. Its expensive, but then most people who dip their toes in the water on new tech expect to pay more and we got a deal with Mercedes which meant we could sell them as almost pre reg price. Retail they werent moving (£50-60k) but with the extra money is made them just under £40k.

Vito is struggling. It has the low range that most on here mention of about 70 mls. That means you need to be in a business where it suits you. They were an almost impossible sell until we put a deal together at £199 per month for 12mths. We sold the lot in a weekend. People who took them want to move into the eletric market, got the free charging point installed and most tbh are just using them as spare vans. As a business paying 40% tax thats really just £120 per month cost. Cheap enough for people to test how Evehicles work for them.

Sprinter is also the same as the vito but with slightly more range. Its about 85miles fully charged, but here is the thing. I used one to move house doing 100% town driving. I used it back and forward all day and the range kept going up. I ended the day at 100mls and had about 15mls left. Again its a job specific vehicle. We put a deal out for 12mths contract at £299 per month and again we sold the lot in one weekend.

There are loads of model updates on the horizon. Each update will kick the previous vehicle in the nuts to begin with which is why all our deals are on Mercedes buy backs so they take the pain. Everyone gets hung up on range and of course its important but the next range will have much quicker charging times (It doesnt make sense to charge an evehicle to 100% anyhow) which with the extra range will make them much more adaptable.

It isnt going away, i wrote a long post on evehicles a while ago and not one person responded. Manufacturers are being forced to sell e vehicles by whatever methods available. They are being fined massive amounts of money for registering dirty diesels and soon you will find evehicles are not that much more expensive than their ICE counterparts due to the manufacturer having to pass on these costs.

As above – it’s the range that kills electric vans for me currently. Reality is, I can comfortably, and safely, drive for 2-2h30 hours at a time. Last week that got me from Bristol to Surry – 127 miles according to Google. I do journeys like that (and longer) fairly regularly, and most of the time where I park up is rural with no charging points. Vaguely affordable vans’ range would struggle with my ‘normal’ driving habits – 40-50 miles each way, no charging points at destination.

If I could rely on a car-sized vehicle I would, but I need a van-sized vehicle for work (Caddy Maxi sized), so until there are ranges where I can get a minimum of 4-5 hours motorway driving out of a charge easily, it’s currently a non-starter for me sadly.

Last week, after a fairly long day’s work, the last thing I’m going to want to do is sit at Leigh Delamere services for 30 mins topping up, just so I can get home 🙁

I lease a 75kwh E-Expert through the business. We took our combined purchase and maintenance costs over the last three years and averaged it across the months. With fuel included we are paying a premium of about £75pm for this van. But, I really liked our electric car and wanted to change the vehicle we do most miles in. It’s just hit 3000 miles and we got it in July I think. Some bits of it feel cheaper than the 2011 Vivaro it replaced, and it’s smaller, but it’s suitably quiet to drive and much nicer to do longer runs in. On a full charge range counter shows 200 miles. It has averaged 2.7 m/kWh so far, so allowing a bit for never having the guts to run it to empty expect 150-180 miles between charges. A 100 mile run from Banchory to the forth road bridge leaves about 45 miles left on the range.

At the moment there aren’t any alternatives really. And yes you can get it in a combi. Expert/Vivaro/Dispatch/Proace, just pick whoever will reply to your emails. We went through drive-electric as the dealers didn’t GAF. They were spot on to deal with.

For next year the VW offering and a new Ford should mix things up a bit. I want to see a dedicated EV platform Trafic or something from Kia/Hyundai, as they make our car and the EV parts of it are quite a bit better than the Peugeot.

hungrymonkey would a 250mls range with the ability to put say 150mls back in 30-45mins be the end of the world?

4hours at 70mph is 280mls. I reckon EV commercials will be able to do that with a 10min stop in the very near future.

pigyn the new citan which will be out next year (So already sorted by Renault 🙂 is the last ICE platform Mercedes commercials will make. Every single new platform will be designed around EV in future. I expect the same of most other manufacturers

I saw these mentioned on the news last week

UPS have just ordered a fleet of them – not seen a price yet though.

4hours at 70mph is 280mls. I reckon EV commercials will be able to do that with a 10min stop in the very near future.

I don’t think that’ll be the case with a traditional-shaped van. A transit has a frontal area that must be 50% more than a car (3.45 vs 2.41 for a transit vs a model 3, from a quick google), more if you’re in a high top, and the cD is close to double (0.4ish for a van, vs low 20s for a slippery car). That makes it close to 3x less efficient (probably half as efficient once tweaked) as a car – this bares true in the offical co2 stats that you find for similar power.

Batteries are expensive, and the market for vans with twice as much battery as a car is tiny, as they’ll cost £75k+. Make the vans smaller and slipprier and you’ll get a lot closer.

hungrymonkey would a 250mls range with the ability to put say 150mls back in 30-45mins be the end of the world?

At 8.30pm, when I left the house at 7am, yeah, sadly it would. Likewise, at 8.15am when I’m running late, I’m unlikely to pop in pre-emptively to top up on the way!

I would love an electric van – I’m at a stage where if the right van existed I would be in a position to put a decent deposit down on one, but it really needs to be the right one, which as far as I can tell, doesn’t exist (for me) quite yet. it’s a massive shame!

If, for even £10k, I could convert my Caddy to electric (with a suitable range) I would right now…

At the moment there aren’t any alternatives really. And yes you can get it in a combi. Expert/Vivaro/Dispatch/Proace

Will look, thanks

Holy Cow, just costed up an E-expert crew van. They want £781 month plus vat!! Diesel half that price…

I’m assuming for vehicles like this the priority is the mass market – not the MTB weekend warrior who buys second hand. Therefore there may be less choice in such vehicles in future, for our intended use.

I suspect camper van market is also tiny compared to the business market.

I also suspect that other solutions will be cheaper for longer journeys – keep on with diesel, use trains more etc.

I’ve been looking at this for work and the only van I’ve found that has decent real world range and size is the Maxus eDeliver9. Annoyingly it was a tad too short to take three standard pallets. Apart from that it was great.

Everything else I’ve looked at has terrible fully loaded range.

Is the limiting factor here not the need to keep the weight down so it can take decent load and be under 3.5te? Electric cars can be mega heavy, which is ok but you can’t just keep putting more batteries in a van without making it functionally useless.

E.g. the current vw transporters have a max gross weight of 3.2te with load capacity up to 1,3te depending on model. Hard to match that when even a smallish car like an ID3 is coming in a 2te.

Even my 7 seat caddy is lighter than an ID3.

£781 pm ex vat does sound very high, are you trying to finance purchase it with a small deposit?

We went with a lease because there was no discounting going on the purchases at all, so I thought just lease for 2-3 years until there is a bigger range then see where we are at.

The lease costs are nowhere near that obviously. Check autotrader for ex demo ones as there were a few up last month

£781 pm ex vat does sound very high

It’s just what popped up on Peugeot’s website.

hungrymonkey would a 250mls range with the ability to put say 150mls back in 30-45mins be the end of the world?

That would be almost there for me. I have two regular 400 mile each way routes to visit aging parents.  I’d want a bit more of a buffer on the range as I’d end up stuck in Kings Lynn, nobody wants that.

Not that it matters, I’m not in the target market at this stage, I need (I mean want) the range and charging for a much smaller price tag. Think ii might see if the East Coast line has improved for bikes since the last time I tried it.

They are always going to be more expensive, at least for the next few years. As I mentioned above, when I looked at the full cost of the last few years van running, going electric worked out at a £75pm premium. That did include a new clutch through, however in the end was slightly offset even more by managing to find much cheaper insurance at the last second. Once we had actually ordered it I never re-did the numbers.

Buying outright or finance would have been better for the business but we didn’t want to be without the cash at the moment. When our Soul is paid off in two years and the lease is up we will look again.

https://www.drive-electric.co.uk/vehicles/peugeot-e-expert-electric-van-75kwh-long/

These lot were great, when I could hardly get the main business centres to talk to me, they were more interested in selling the diesel models from stock, than taking a more expensive order for three months away. Drive Electric give you a free podpoint home charger too which is nice, and getting rarer.

At the end of the day only you can figure out if it works for your situation yet, but for us it has been great so far. Always nice to rock up for a ride at Comrie Croft and stick it on their free solar assisted chargers then come back to a full battery 😁 It is a big battery though so tend to sly them a bit more for parking

Well, google suggests LNER are still pants for bikes

Whats the word on the Vauxhall Combo-e. I like the looks of Crew Cab Long version. And doesnt look too crazy price wise like some? But 150 mile range and its a Vauxhall??!!
https://www.vauxhall.co.uk/vans/combo/build-and-price/electric/crew-van.html#/model

E Berlingo XL as an alternative? Seems cheaper for similar/greater range than the Vauxhall.

https://www.citroen.co.uk/models/berlingo/configurator-break.html/Model

And this was the thread I couldn’t find when I posted about the new electric Tranny earlier this week – I stuck the info in the electric car thread…

Peugeot e-Expert hydrogen 400km range.
Intelligent Energy had a prototype in 2008

My diesel NV200 is ULEZ-compliant, but does get hit by the Central London Congestion Charge

@TheLittlestHobo

I looked the other day at selling my 2018, 40000 mile, 119 Tourer Select (quite a few nice extras) to move to an electric one. Should go for £25k +

List price on the new (better range) E-Tourer Select L3 was £65k before any options!

E Berlingo XL as an alternative?

Ah yes & those rear seats on crew cab fold flat, neat.

Found my next electric van:

Hell, I’d be happy with a quarter (or even an eighth) of that output in the next Transit Custom if it’s going to be electric. Ford already has the tech in a production vehicle:

https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/

563ps (420kW)
775lb ft (1,050Nm)
0-60 mid-4sec

Stick that in the next production Transit Custom and I’ll be happy.

Just seen this on the topgear YouTube channel… Yes please

Ford have a transit eV on their website with roughly 190 mile range… Looks ok