Electric Vans - Range

[monkey5]

question for anyone whos got one really. So im seriously thinking about an electric vehicle, hydrogen cell vehicles look to be the best thing but wont be main stream for a good few years over here i think, with hydrogen stations needed everywhere. so my biggest worry is does the mileage dramatically fall when lugging around a van full all the time. understand it will a bit but was after some figures of real life miles on a charge compared to manufacturers stated mileage.
cheers

 

[ProDave]

Someone I know took a 2 week free trial of an electric Transit. The quoted range was 130 miles, but loaded with tools he was lucky to get 70 miles in practice.

That would be way too low for me, and I think he felt the same.

 

[monkey5]

Someone I know took a 2 week free trial of an electric Transit. The quoted range was 130 miles, but loaded with tools he was lucky to get 70 miles in practice.

That would be way too low for me, and I think he felt the same.

i probably do 50 miles maximum a day really, sometimes maybe 80 but very rarely. range being quoted is just over 200 for the vivaro.

 

[johnb2713]

question for anyone who's got one really. So im seriously thinking about an electric vehicle, hydrogen cell vehicles look to be the best thing but wont be main stream for a good few years over here i think,

Hydrogen wonder fuel will never happen. Yes, it's a great fuel to use but a complete nightmare to harvest. If used in an internal combustion engine, it takes 4 x the energy to harvest the Hydrogen than obtained when using it, in a fuel cell it's much better at twice the energy needed than produced when it's used.

 

[Murdoch]

Just do your sums, petrol and diesel prices aren’t going to drop, and
electric prices are going up.


and any govername to is going to need to claw back road fund tax they are not getting

 

[johnb2713]

Just do your sums, petrol and diesel prices aren’t going to drop, and
electric prices are going up.


and any govername to is going to need to claw back road fund tax they are not getting

I'm under no illusion with the price models, solar powering my EV's is good at the moment. The Hydrogen situation makes it a brilliant fuel to use but completely uneconomic to use no matter what happens to diesel and petrol prices. Running it in an internal combustion engine which many people think is a simple conversion, isnt. It's a major, major conversion that renders the car almost useless.

 

[NozSpark]

the main problem is that different manufacturers load their differently when working out the WLTP figures... for most they use 20%, and lower, loaded figures,,, the only manufacturer that uses something at least close to reality is Maxus, they apparently use 70%

 

[monkey5]

France and Germany are getting the hydrogen vivaros this year by the looks of it.

 

[NozSpark]

Hydrogen just isn't viable at the moment..

A fully electric car can do 40 miles for 10kWh of electric
To create the hydrogen to do a similar number of miles would use 40kWh of electricity

all (ish)

 

[johnb2713]

Hydrogen just isn't viable at the moment..

A fully electric car can do 40 miles for 10kWh of electric
To create the hydrogen to do a similar number of miles would use 40kWh of electricity

all (ish)

Absolutely correct, Hydrogen is a great fuel to actually use, harvesting it, storing it, transporting it is a complete nightmare.

 

[Gian]

Just do your sums, petrol and diesel prices aren’t going to drop, and
electric prices are going up.


and any govername to is going to need to claw back road fund tax they are not getting

Your spot on Murdoch. We have EVs but we would not dream of selling our diesel. I would be hugely concerned with the reports I am reading about power cuts , bassed just that alone as a buisnes can you afford not to go to work due to your electric van not having enough charge.

 

[johnb2713]

Your spot on Murdoch. We have EVs but we would not dream of selling our diesel. I would be hugely concerned with the reports I am reading about power cuts , bassed just that alone as a buisnes can you afford not to go to work due to your electric van not having enough charge.

I don't think the power cuts are a major cause for concern, they're talking about 3 hours when the conditions get really bad, a less likely condition than the oil refineries going on strike or the green nutters stopping fuel deliveries.

I do think however you need to assess your requirements carefully, the range on vans isn't amazing and the charging situation can quite demanding. I was at Leicester Forest services a couple on months and needed to top up to complete my journey, when I got to charging points (all 2 of them), they're both occupied with DPD vans, I had word with the driver that was there he told me they had to charge twice per day, every night at 17:00 they rock up to Leicester Forest to charge, DPD hadn't installed any chargers at the depot. He went point out there were 6 more vans in the queue and when he was swapping over for the other guys who can home. I asked how long to charge he said each one was 1 hour. Not happy at the prospect of waiting 3 hours, i was about to leave and he invited me to grab a quick top up.

Abysmal situation for a major motorway service area made even worse by a company like DPD.

 

[Aryyz]

78 miles loaded transit .

 

[monkey5]

78 miles loaded transit .

Thankyou, what's the manufacturer's stated range.
Cheers

 

[UNG]

78 miles loaded transit .

Based on what conditions EV's seem to have a lot of operating variables depending on the climatic conditions of the day that are not really represented in some of the figures given

 

[UNG]

I do think however you need to assess your requirements carefully, the range on vans isn't amazing and the charging situation can quite demanding. I was at Leicester Forest services a couple on months and needed to top up to complete my journey, when I got to charging points (all 2 of them), they're both occupied with DPD vans, I had word with the driver that was there he told me they had to charge twice per day, every night at 17:00 they rock up to Leicester Forest to charge, DPD hadn't installed any chargers at the depot. He went point out there were 6 more vans in the queue and when he was swapping over for the other guys who can home. I asked how long to charge he said each one was 1 hour. Not happy at the prospect of waiting 3 hours, i was about to leave and he invited me to grab a quick top up.

Speaking to a few of the Amazon delivery drivers some are using upto 4 electric vans per day to complete their deliveries and this seems to be the norm in other areas across the country from what I'm hearing

 

[johnb2713]

Speaking to a few of the Amazon delivery drivers some are using up to 4 electric vans per day to complete their deliveries and this seems to be the norm in other areas across the country from what I'm hearing

I'm a big believer in EV's, I run 2 electric cars myself, I would have to concede the market isn't right yet for electric vans unless you only need to do less than 50 miles per day.

 

[Murdoch]

I think that if you have 2 cars and you live anywhere vaguely built up then having a small EV does make some sense - especially if you have your own charge point

On the subject of charge points, using independent ones can now be more expensive than petrol per mile too

 

[johnb2713]

On the subject of charge points, using independent ones can now be more expensive than petrol per mile too

Not very many though. Still a lot of free charge points and a lot of 40-45p ones. Taking petrol at an average of £1.662 - compared to 45p per kWh
My i3 averages 4.9 miles / KWh, at 45p per kWh that works out at 9.2p per mile. Remember the i3 has a nippy performance of less than 7 seconds to 60 mph. Compare to say a Fiesta Ecoboost (the most economical one) 0-60 12 seconds and 50mpg. It is also physically smaller than the i3. Average quoted MPG - 50 therefore at £1.662 per litre thats £7.54 per gallon, 50 miles equates to 15p per mile.
If you use the £1 per kWh extremes found at some uk motorway services and by the same token use the £1.92 in the Fiesta petrol the figures become :-
i3 - 20p per mile and the Fiesta 17.5p. So on a per mile basis it can be cheaper (just) unless you consider in addition, it's likely the i3 will have started it's journey charged at home on 7.5p per kWh so the first 130 miles will be at 1.5p per mile etc.The reality is, it's highly unlikely a petrol car will ever be cheaper to run fuel wise than an EV. Add to that the servicing, road tax, free charging in many places and free parking in many places it's a real no brainer.

 

[Murdoch]

Not very many though. Still a lot of free charge points and a lot of 40-45p ones. Taking petrol at an average of £1.662 - compared to 45p per kWh
My i3 averages 4.9 miles / KWh, at 45p per kWh that works out at 9.2p per mile. Remember the i3 has a nippy performance of less than 7 seconds to 60 mph. Compare to say a Fiesta Ecoboost (the most economical one) 0-60 12 seconds and 50mpg. It is also physically smaller than the i3. Average quoted MPG - 50 therefore at £1.662 per litre thats £7.54 per gallon, 50 miles equates to 15p per mile.
If you use the £1 per kWh extremes found at some uk motorway services and by the same token use the £1.92 in the Fiesta petrol the figures become :-
i3 - 20p per mile and the Fiesta 17.5p. So on a per mile basis it can be cheaper (just) unless you consider in addition, it's likely the i3 will have started it's journey charged at home on 7.5p per kWh so the first 130 miles will be at 1.5p per mile etc.The reality is, it's highly unlikely a petrol car will ever be cheaper to run fuel wise than an EV. Add to that the servicing, road tax, free charging in many places and free parking in many places it's a real no brainer.

I heard this on a decent podcast the other day about the extreme costs of independent EV charge points.

I just thought it was worth recounting for the record

So from a point of ignorance if you stop at an independent charge point is it very obvious how much the cost is per kWh ?