[AuRavelling79]

Electric vans/vehicles.

Anyone using or considering for work? Fleet operators considering for city areas?

Also private family cars too.

Experiences and thoughts most welcome.

[Jay Le Huray]

not for me

[alank]

Nor me.

[Bungle]

Nor me. My neighbour has got a Vauxhall all electric car. The charger started playing up and they had to drive 10 miles to charge it. They lease it. I might get a hybrid but not really looked into it. I'd like an automatic van though, my car is auto and so easy to drive.

[dd]

Thought you just got your Hyundai back on road. It ought to serve you until retirement, unless you plan to work into your 70's.

[Martin Lane]

l know Ionics have already fitted quit a few of their systems in electric vans I will try and get some feedback from them

[The Jester of Wibbly]

My next van will be Electric.  Seeing as we don't cover many miles in a day,  I reckon they are ideal for us with all these short stops which are now not ideal for these new vans.  Fast charge over night every two of three days.    Seems okay, but need to research a bit more.

I won't miss the worry of gearbox, clutch, engine blows, oil leaks, starter motors and those diesel filter failures.

[windowswashed]

Keeping my diesel van until retirement. Drive an XKR that gets to  60mph in 4.5 secs so won't ever be going electric. More chance of emigrating than buying an EV, no thanks!

[AuRavelling79]

Thought you just got your Hyundai back on road. It ought to serve you until retirement, unless you plan to work into your 70's.

I have. I'm not asking for me. As you say, my van in my locality ought to last me out.

But I know that others here might start to consider it.

[AuRavelling79]

Keeping my diesel van until retirement. Drive an XKR that gets to  60mph in 4.5 secs so won't ever be going electric. More chance of emigrating than buying an EV, no thanks!

I didn't think about acceleration but if that's important a Tesla does 0-60 in under 4 seconds.

[AuRavelling79]

My next van will be Electric.  Seeing as we don't cover many miles in a day,  I reckon they are ideal for us.  Fast charge over night every two of three days.    Seems okay, but need to research a bit more.

I won't miss the worry of gearbox, clutch, engine blows, oil leaks and those detail filters.

What about payload? Is that a factor?

[The Jester of Wibbly]

My next van will be Electric.  Seeing as we don't cover many miles in a day,  I reckon they are ideal for us.  Fast charge over night every two of three days.    Seems okay, but need to research a bit more.

I won't miss the worry of gearbox, clutch, engine blows, oil leaks and those detail filters.

What about payload? Is that a factor?

No idea, need to research it when ready to change.  But if the van can't handle a decent payload, I shouldn't be called a van 🤣

[AuRavelling79]

My next van will be Electric.  Seeing as we don't cover many miles in a day,  I reckon they are ideal for us.  Fast charge over night every two of three days.    Seems okay, but need to research a bit more.

I won't miss the worry of gearbox, clutch, engine blows, oil leaks and those detail filters.

What about payload? Is that a factor?

No idea, need to research it when ready to change.  But if the van can't handle a decent payload, I shouldn't be called a van 🤣

I agree. However the heavier the vehicle the more batteries are needed. Eating into the payload. A bit of a vicious circle and why in the early days you could more readily get lighter vans.

As yet, no electric lorries in part for that reason!

[windowswashed]

Keeping my diesel van until retirement. Drive an XKR that gets to  60mph in 4.5 secs so won't ever be going electric. More chance of emigrating than buying an EV, no thanks!

I didn't think about acceleration but if that's important a Tesla does 0-60 in under 4 seconds.

Tesla don't purr like a kitten and growl like a tiger when you put your foot down and are just plain ugly, no soul.

[Arnold Palmer]

It's a long story but at one point I had 3. Currently down to one which I'll be returning in march. Unfortunately my first foray into electric vehicles hit the stumbling blocks. I was offered a deal that was too good to be true and it turned out that it was too good to be true. Suffice it to say - don't hire vans. Ever.

However, I've bought one which will be delivered next week, fingers crossed

If you want to go electric there's ground work you need to do and some things that are deal breakers.

1 - You need somewhere to charge it. At home. You can't be reliant on the current infrastructure.

2 - Buy a decent charger.

B - You need to get your electric tariff sorted to a day/night rate. There is a cap at the moment so most domestic rates are the same (around 30pkwh). That will work out around the same for fuel as diesel. My rate is 9.5ppkwh during the night and 31ppkwh during the day. It knocks around 2/3 off the fuel bill. Slightly more expensive during the day for electricity but the savings on fuel far outstrip the extra 1ppkwh during the day.

D - Take a look at the distances you normally cover. The vans on the market (and coming into the second hand market) claim to do 150 miles. In reality they do 130 in the summer and as low as 100 in the winter if you've got the heater running all day. I have a number of vans on the road, at present there's only 2 that I couldn't replace with electric due to range issues. I imagine that the range on the next gen will be much higher though. The new ford truck claims 600 miles.

F - Don't read the stories in the daily mail about EVs. They are lying to you for some reason and it's weird. https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/daily-mail-misleads-its-readers-about-electric-vehicles/

4 - Depreciation is an issue. As with all technology, when a new version comes out the price of the old one drops like a stone.

5 - If you use your van for other stuff; as your daily driver, fishing trips, that sort of thing - forget it. Wait until the range is longer. They are great for shopping though. There's always a parking space 

G - Do your research properly. It's a big initial outlay but the savings are massive.

If you've got any spare cash knocking about I'd be looking at solar panels and battery storage too (you can charge your battery on night rate and run your house on 9.5ppkwh). If the last few years have taught us anything it's that we can't trust any of these modded

TLDR; Electric vans are pretty much perfect for window cleaning.

[Arnold Palmer]

Keeping my diesel van until retirement. Drive an XKR that gets to  60mph in 4.5 secs so won't ever be going electric. More chance of emigrating than buying an EV, no thanks!

I didn't think about acceleration but if that's important a Tesla does 0-60 in under 4 seconds.

Tesla don't purr like a kitten and growl like a tiger when you put your foot down and are just plain ugly, no soul.

I'm not a fan of Teslas either. They are ugly, they look like a 90s Mondeo and up close they are built like a 90s vauxhall. Tesla's charging infrastructure is great though

I quite like the look of the Jaguar ipace.



Although I understand it has reliability issues, course it does it's a Jag. Having said that it's got 1000s less movable parts to go wrong than an xkr.

[Arnold Palmer]

My next van will be Electric.  Seeing as we don't cover many miles in a day,  I reckon they are ideal for us.  Fast charge over night every two of three days.    Seems okay, but need to research a bit more.

I won't miss the worry of gearbox, clutch, engine blows, oil leaks and those detail filters.

What about payload? Is that a factor?

So far I've found them to be better than diesels. Almost all of the electric vans I've looked at have had more than 800kg payload. Most 1t+

The vivaro I just bought is 1226kg

[Spruce]

Just hope you aren't involved in an accident and that the batteries don't catch fire.

John Cadogan on Youtube has made some good observations.

We have a customer working on a fuel storage site (one of 4) on Teesside. No electric or hybrid vehicles are allowed on site due to fire risk.

[Arnold Palmer]

Just hope you aren't involved in an accident

I hope that anyway.

[AuRavelling79]

Just hope you aren't involved in an accident and that the batteries don't catch fire.

John Cadogan on Youtube has made some good observations.

We have a customer working on a fuel storage site (one of 4) on Teesside. No electric or hybrid vehicles are allowed on site due to fire risk.

From 'What Car?'

A Freedom of Information request submitted by Air Quality News revealed that the London Fire Brigade tackled 54 EV fires in 2019, compared with 1898 fires involving petrol or diesel cars. True, there are far more petrol and diesel cars on London roads than EVs, but this still means there were proportionally fewer electric car fires than fires involving ICE cars.


Same article ...

In fact, the fully electric Tesla Model Y is the highest-scoring car tested by Euro NCAP since the latest standards were introduced in 2020, which is part of the reason why it won our Safety Award at the 2023 What Car? Awards.