@@sandyfordd1843 Didn't take that option. It's only 2.3kW and as an electrician, all my tools are cordless, even my large SDS's. It takes up some space where I now have racking and also it weighs quite a bit, I'm already at the limit of the max weight here in europe. (3500kg max). It's 2600kg instead of 2300kg empty for a regular transit. So that's the only disadvantage for my usage tbh.
I’m an electrician and we average around 80 miles round trip. It’s extremely rare I go over 120miles a day. I understand having a parcel delivery business wouldn’t work, but vast majority of tradesman I know would be working in it’s range. I’ve watched many different videos from tradesman who absolutely love their e-transits and are ordering more. Funny that the only negative comments are from people who don’t own one.
Parcel delivery in an urban area with a dense route with many stops would still work. Doing that even over a long 10 hour day, would be hard to do over 80 miles in one day. I've read even postal delivery vans for the USPS rarely do more than like 60 miles a day.
You mentioned that you put the van in Eco mode. The acceleration is horrible and eco-mode you’re only getting 50% power. If you put it in normal mode, you will be more impressed. I surprise a lot of drivers who try to cut me off. As far as range, My numbers are around 90 miles a day. I average around 1.7 to 1.9 miles per kilowatt hour. A lot of it on the freeway keeping up with traffic at around 81 miles an hour.(top speed). I love the fact that I can drive in the carpool lane, and that the van is equipped with active cruise control.
So far from November to August in my E-transit I've averaged 2.1 miles per kw/hr over 7500 miles or so. In the winter when it was below 0F outside range dropped to maybe around 80 miles in a day. In the summer, sometimes I've gotten as high as 148 (city driving with very little freeway use except maybe 1-2 exits and then back off). Not a huge deal, being in the HVAC/R trade, business is slow in the winter anyway. On the other hand, having that nearly instant hot heat on a super cold day is a game changer. I can turn on the HVAC with my phone and it takes literally maybe 10-15 minutes to melt off all the overnight snow and ice. And not having to wait for it to warm up after stopping to do a job for a couple hours in the middle of the day is super nice.
My EV loosed about 30% of range in cold weather and heat running. So my guess is this EV transit would gain about 30% of range is warm weather without heat running
Which is Bull Shit as no one is going to drive without heat and it wasn't even cold in their test and this has to work 100% of the time. Which means 85 miles is still too high in reality. This is useless
My company uses these and we get on avg 88 miles on a single 100% charge. In the winter maybe 60-70miles with a 100% charge but the charging time also increases drastically to the point they are basically out of service for an entire shift.
@@w8stral LOL tradesman have gotten soft. I worked my Dad's construction company form 80s to 90s as young man and our 60s van didn't have working heater or AC. Hot? open a window and floor vents. Cold? put on 2nd layer of wool socks, beanie and some work gloves.
Yea, lets go backwards buying vehicles which have a TINY range and zero comforts... yea, that will sell well. Oh right, its about religion, not progress. @@dailyrider2975
Guys thanks for video! I find all info here relevant and very well presented! Thanks! You answered a lot of questions for me in a technical and clear way! The chewbacca grrrrr 😅😅😅
Thank you so much Gentelmen I run a fleet of vans in the UK and really want to move over to EVs, but this video has saved me a lot of time and possibly money as it shows me they are just not there yet some days needing 200 miles return trips + load, etc it just wouldn't work. I guess its back to diesel.
Is there a petrol option for transit size vans? With the current cost difference between petrol and diesel fuel, a petrol engined van begins to look attractive, modern petrol turbo DI engines can be tuned to have low end torque, and the mileage difference would be easily offset by the 30p+ per litre fuel price difference and not needing adblue... As you say, EV vans aren't there yet, seems to me that petrol would make sense until they are, especially as a hybrid.
The Mercedes eSprinter would be the only option coming in at 295 miles. It's a lot bigger of an initial sticker price though. I’d hope to see something close to 400-500 miles to convert to a campervan.
@@longrange1977 here in North America the sprinter transit and promaster (fiat) are all available in gasoline powered versions and are more common than diesel. The promaster is not available as a diesel here I don't think. At my work they have an f550 tow truck with a gas v10. It's absolutely horrible on fuel but it continues to work every day unlike the diesels which have too many emmisions problems. A Hino 358 I used to drive used to cost them around $30,000 a year in emmisions repairs. It had 500,000km on it when they got rid of it. It left me stranded multiple times. Now I am driving an international with an L9 Cummins and it has 54,000k on it and it has already had problems. It gets better mileage at 15 tonnes than the gas ford does weighing maybe 4 tonnes however
The real question is what is that range like after 3-5 years of being used and charged every day? What about when its actually cold and below freezing? Will that limited range be cut down to an unusable range? Hows it handle 5 degree weather? Is it useless?
Heat is a huge factor for city driving. Also, regenerative braking doesn't really increase your range relative to not stopping. Slower speeds should, as you said, but if it's resistive heat, I expect that cost you. I thought the braking pattern is interesting. I have a 2013 Volt (for 9 years now) and the blended brakes in it are super smooth and indistinguishable from raw friction except for the green bar - I find that perfect and don't look forward to having to give that up to paddles or other mechanisms (it also has "low", mimicking 2nd in an automatic, similar to what you described, and that is very useful in stop-n-go traffic). Overall, it sounded like a useful option for users needing (relatively) low mileage per day (for me, the ~40 mi range at moderate temps is totally sufficient day to day, but that's commuting, not delivering). Now, get me a "high" range transit that can be converted to micro-rv ... 😋
The reason for the better highway range was you spend a lot more energy getting up to speed than you can possibly recover from regen braking. Hence you spend a lot less energy if you have to get up to speed once. If you tested while it was empty you would get the results you expected.
The range on the 2nd charge is less, yes, but miles of range/charging time is better. Remember, these vehicles are designed for routes where they don't need to charge during the day, 2hich for many (not all) vans is all they do, especially last-mile delivery or local city work vans.
i do and average of 350 miles a day in my Merc Sprinter.......pickingup and dropping off ....loaded most of the day.... i get around 390-430 miles ..... i wouldn't have time in the day to charge 2 or 3 times and still get my work done ....these vans are ok if you are doing short city driving ......no good on motorways with long distances in between .....and tight schedules
@@glennr9913 It is designed for the urban environment, either delivery or building contractor work. Deliveries will not be fully loaded all the time so will probably get 100 miles between charges - that is more than 1/2 a day of driving so they just charge at lunch time (or swap to a second van). Contractors will be fine with it as long as there is a charging point(s) at the construction site.
The lower range in the city could be because of the stop and go with full load, the acceleration takes the most ammount of energy, while highway crusing at constant speet usually has high consumption once you just glide at constant speed the weigth is no longer a factor. (unless hills come)
I just got a Renault Trafic sport + diesel, I fill it up in five minutes and it is good for 650-700 miles. These EVs are ok if you only need short range I guess, but it looks like you need to wait about six hours of charge time to cover the same range that I can get in less than five minutes at a pump.
@@didierpuzenat7280 If range is not an issue then EVs are ok I guess, but I regularly do 140 + miles in a day for work, plus my van is my only vehicle so I like to know I can use it whenever needed.
3:08 For the metric viewers 3000lbs = 1.36Tonnes. Do you think the high box version would be good for a stealth camper conversion? Looks a decent amount of floor space. Great to hear this has an App control. The Citreon van I tested was very basic in terms of user control and configuration. 13:11 I like the fact that the front cab design allows you to scoot over to the passenger side. I wish electric cars had that ability! Also I believe in the UK, the passenger side can be configured with a two person seat. Did you adjust the wheel pressures to suit the max payload? I always run my cars at the highest load rated pressure to reduce rolling resistance. Great review. Excellent to see this.
They should offer it with the ER Lightning pack, AWD, and the power plugs from the lightning. That would make it awesome for that, cause you could travel much easier, and would have a lot more battery to power stuff with. Oh, and a solar roof option.
@@fjalics ... while a solar option is a nice idea for off-grid camping, the gain of maybe 1-2 KW of charging would be painfully slow for any other reason.
@@rupe53 I agree, unless it's an Aptera(which isn't in production yet) and you park in the sun, in a sunny place. Most people are better off putting solar on their roof.
Someone’s testing a 266 hp Transit and finds it fine for “around town use”… that’s about 100hp more than a highly optioned normal diesel Transit on the continent that gave the world the Transit to begin with.
It was at max payload so it’s not as quick as it’d be, on average, since the van well seldom be at max payload doing deliveries. But your point is well taken.
Accelerating from stops consumes huge amounts of energy. City driving is chock full of stops. Green cities should really figure out how to minimize stops for their citizens. It's due to static vs dynamic friction at the start (why some trucks try to keep rolling hoping for the light to change) plus accelerating a mass eats up the 'fuel' more than steady state.
I was going to say similar, high speed driving is more about tire and wind drag, stop start around town driving is more about weight (force = mass * acceleration etc.)
Bingo! I'm retired from a pipe trade and city driving kills milage with stop and go when hauling any weight above 2k pounds. My bet is, the regeneration system can't match the energy required to move an additional 3k of weight from a dead stop. If it could, Ford would face multiple lawsuits for whiplash and rear end accidents...
Regarding range discrepancy, did Ford say or do anything regarding the gearing for the electric motor? I'd assume that van use cases primarily spend more of their time between 15 and 60mph, not 35-75 like most POVs. If they didnt change anything, could a tall ratio cause the motor to just work harder (in terms of it's efficiency curve) at lower speeds?
I think you’re on to something with the working harder at slower speeds because of payload. I think though mostly it’s the heater trying to keep me warm. - Chad
That 13 second zero to 60 suggests a very different gearing from a typical passenger EV. The lost efficiency in town could be partly related to bringing the load up to speed, but resistive heating is likely a big factor. Can't wait for the next generation eSprinter and Ford. They'll have much better range, probably faster charging and hopefully a heat pump option. The new 2nd gen eSprinter is being made in South Carolina and should be on sale I think this year.
70-116 miles on one charge is about as much use as a chocolate teapot! My Vauxhall Combo van does 500 miles on one tank of diesel (OK, it’s a much smaller van - that transit you’re testing is large by UK standards, but still - you’d need at least 300 miles range to be useful!)
I'm not sure if i'm missing something but at 34p per kwh at 1.2 miles per kwh that van is costing 28p per mile. My sprinter is doing a mile on 27p of diesel.......
Fantastic review. The van didnt looked like it was squatting at all, other than power did it seem to handle that weight well while driving around town?
Surprisingly well. I joked with Craig that maybe Ford didn’t actually put that much weight in it when it didn’t squat much. The reality? The van could probably handle a bunch more weight. - Chad
After seeing your reviews on the Ford E truck and van, it seems reasonable some might choose the truck over the van, and add on a cap/box to suit their needs. Better range and performance, while also able to carry a few passengers. Peace - John
Repeatedly having to accelerate that max payload likely used much more energy. Regeneration is not 100% efficient (nor is acceleration). At highway speed that additional mass may have helped at a fairly constant speed to help overcome the wind resistance force.
So driving at 60mph in a real van, you will get to your destination in one and a half hours. Which is how long it will take to charge this electric van to do the same distance.. So OK if you want to spend your life waiting for your vehicle to charge. And don't forget you have to wait another one and a half hours before you can start the journey back, and that's not allowing how long it would take you to find a charging point.
@@jonwelch564 just think that one out, van driver working 40 hours a week. How many deliveries can he do in a real van, vers how many can he do in a E van.
@@jonwelch564 What about companies that use the same truck for different users. If you had 20 drivers,10 driving days and 10 driving nights. In an EV motor that is buying 20 vehicles because of recharge times of 8-10 hrs. Buying diesel van you only need 10 vans for 20 drivers. Also no mention of battery degradation with new batteries every 5-10 years. Diesel engines last a lot longer.
@@paulcowan3222 no company runs it's van 24/7 and vans need to be loaded, so there time for you. And regarding battery degradation, Tesla's data shows after 250,000km on average they lose 9%. I don't know how many companies will buy a new van and run it all the way up to 250k I doubt many. A friend has 40+ vans and he sells them probably around the 100,000km mark because they are just too unreliable. You know, way too many moving parts wearing each other out. Electric vans have hardly any moving part, and due to regenerative brakes, even the brakes will wear less. The more you look the more of a win they will become. It's still early days and it will get a lot better. There are a lot of very clever people working on this.
@@stephensmith7919 I have no idea I don't know how far a delivery van drives. But for myself I don't drive more than about 60 miles in a day. My current diesel van will be good for many years yet. So I won't be changing any time soon.
You said it’s ok for delivery but our two local Amazon depots where they deliver to us are 31 miles away and 46 miles away so no good for them . Some of the transit van I’ve seen have done over 140,000 miles in 3 years
The range was worse in the city because it is being asked to do more work. On the highway most of the work is wind resistance. In the city it's mostly getting the vehicle up to speed. In a car the wind resistance will need more effort to overcome than pottering around town but when you have a lot of weight to move that changes and once you start getting heavy it swings the other way. Regen helps a little but even the best regen systems only get around 30% return on power used and thats in one small island of efficiency. To actually stop you will need the friction brakes for the last few mph and the higher the load on the regen system the more is lost to heat. As an example lets say an empty Transit needs 1.5 kWh per mile city and 2.0 highway. When you fully load it that highway number is only going to go up very slightly because once its rolling the weight makes very little difference (a small amount more rolling resistance only) so it may still only need 2.1kWh per mile. On the other hand that load in a city will need to be constantly accelerated and controlled so could easily add half the power need over an empty van. In this case that would be 2.25 kWh per mile and even though that is just an example it looks pretty similar to your test results. There are also other things like taking longer to do the same distance which means all the ancillaries will be running for longer so if the heater, wipers, lights and so on are using the same power per hour and you take twice the time to do the run they will consume double the power overall. Even things like the EPAS system will have to do a lot more work in the city and will therefore use more electricity. Its not going to add up to that much overall but when you only have 68kWh to play with in the first place, losing the 8 of that to keep warm and be able to see does have an effect. I like the E-transit but I feel like its a bit of a half ar5ed attempt. Ford already have a Mach-E with a much larger battery so why not use that? Or two of that because the only use profiles this fits is short, last mile deliverys and very local tradesmen. Any van which needs to earn its living based on the work it does will almost never run empty or even low on load because more in the back generally means more money earned. If it can't charge quickly it needs a large range. If it can't do either its very limited. I just don;t understand why there aren't at least larger battery options or better yet a range extender.
24:29 No, the heater does not consume more energy when not moving ;-). But your measure is about distance, not time, and off course at a lower speed it takes more time to make a given distance. And of course the longer the heater works to more energy is used. So to address that issue it would be nice to have a heat pump. Finally, the way generative breaking is implemented (with the pedal) may not be so smart and efficient. The last issue is probably weight, regenerative breaking only retake a fraction of the energy use to accelerate, so I would assume that in cities weight matters a lot.
In the UK Amazon decided to use these E Transits in my area. I live around 25 miles from the nearest Amazon which us in Ipswich in Suffolk. I live on the outskirts of Colchester in Essex. Between the depot and my house there is only 1 place where the drivers can recharge. It got so ridiculous with up to 9 Amazon vans queueing to use the 4 available chargers, that in the end Amazon switched to using diesel Transits again.
@@davelowe1977 in the end they will be ev, once the infrastructure is there. Just a matter of time. We have a depot in Deeside Wales, I see a mixture of ev and fuel presently
@@alanbell2156 it won’t be overnight but eventually. A Ford F-150 lightning can power a house in the USA for 10 days, so in the UK that’s would be weeks. So a refrigerated van should be no problem given the right battery capacity. Once the battery power to weight to cost ratio comes down, it’s inevitable I think?
@@fydstar I was waiting for you to come away with that rubbish. Just surprised it took you so long. You guys are completely deluded. Or maybe just being sponsored by Ford? Your credibility is now zero.
If you are stop-start driving in town, surely you are using more power to get the van moving from a standstill at the lights than you are when cruising at a steady speed. This can't be that much different than in a conventional vehicle because, as the man said, ye cannae change the laws o' physics!
Could you do an evaluation of the service and maintenance of an EV? I am a big advocate of electric vehicles, however lithium ion batteries degrade over time and their necessary charging management system/software can give rise to premature range loss. My experience with diagnosing loss of range has lead me to believe that the manufacturer (in this case Ford) has done very little in providing diagnostic tools and training for their service staff to find and resolve the root cause of battery range loss. Thanks, -John-
Surly physics says that start-stop city driving will use more power to move the weight from a stop position each time, and continuing movement without stopping will use less ?!?!?
@@justicar5 do they? I recently spoke to an Amazon driver and he told me that his van, I'm 99% sure it was a Mercedes, claims 90 miles on a full charge, however that's empty and in ideal conditions. When I was talking to him about a month about it was minus 2 and he reckoned that the previous day he ran out of charge at 30 miles and had to wait for another van (diesel) to come out to him and take all the parcels then wait with the van for breakdown while he continued his deliveries in a diesel sprinter. Apparently this is a daily occurrence.
Would be good to repeat the test with3/4 load and 1/2 load and empty. This would give allow those that carry bulky but light loads to see how much range they can expect
I still can’t believe there aren’t more hybrid vans available. I really thought Toyota would cross there hybrid technology over to commercial vehicles, it’s a no brainer at this point.
OK, my rule of thumb is 10 kWh = 1 gallon so 6 gallons of gas. So my Hyundai entourage gets 22 mpg at best or 132 miles. I'll edit this comment at end of video after results. .......Ok, so end of video using my rule of thumb about 15mpg. Which is about right for 3,000 lbs load in full size van. Just looked online and 17 mpg is what a regular ICE transit van gets empty. So impressive. 75 mile in 30 min is also, for me, totally doable. I've also seen video of plumber taking his E-transit more than 130 miles in one charge, so load and temp big difference. I think range was MASSIVELY cut down by having heater on all day. Also max weight I think affected city range, regen is not as impressive as people think, pulling up from stop is a big draw on energy. USED: $40 K for E-transit 2023 used with less than 2k on odometer, about 10 in 100 miles from me.
Reviewing the final "real world" range numbers, I concur that the LOWER range in the city-street test was probably caused by running the heater at 70°F. It would be interesting to test this van on a 68°F day, without any use of heater or sir conditioning, and see what kind of range it can get under ideal conditions. I have an OBD-II transmitter on my Prius Prime, and an app that displays a bunch of powertrain data in real-time. At 35 mph on flat ground, without any of the lights, accessories, or the heater or a/c in operation, the car's various computers draw about 200 watts, and the MG2 propulsion motor draws about 5,000 watts. This is consistant with the car's actual range of about 33 miles on the 6 kw-hr "available" capacity of the traction battery. The car's HVAC system uses a heat pump driven by a 3-phase electric motor, and it draws 1,800 watts. So running the heat or air conditioning increases the drain on the battery by a whopping 36%. The E-Transit van has a much larger battery than my Prius, but it also has a much greater interior volume, so I would guess that the Transit's heat pump is probably at least 2 or 3 times larger than what's in a Prius. I did a comparison of the E-Transit high-roof cargo van to the Mercedes Benz Sprinter Van with a diesel engine, to see what kind of life-cycle costs a Fleet operator might incur, using these vans for package delivery. My analysis for the Sprinter took into account initial purchase price, plus diesel fuel and the cost of 20 oil changes for 100,000 miles. I came up with a cost of about 96¢/mile, assuming $5.00/gallon for diesel fuel. For the Ford E-Transit, in it's longest, high-roof configuration, figure charging at 10¢/kw-hr, 90 miles range per charge, 3 transmission fluid changes in 100,000 miles at $150 each, and 40% less maintenance costs overall, the Ford comes in at about 65¢/mile for 100,000 miles. The main discrepancy is that the Mercedes Diesel van has a max payload of 6,500 pounds, the Ford is 3,800 pounds, but interior volume of the two vehicles is similar, and in package delivery service, vans are rarely loaded to maximum gross weight; if they were, the packages would be so heavy the drivers couldn't handle them without using dollies, and we've all seen Amazon delivery drivers deliver almost every package carrying them in their arms - they're mostly not heavier than 20~30 pounds. So in typical package delivery service, it's interior volume that's more important, not absolute payload weight capacity.
Regenerative braking is only about 30%-35% efficient. The reason EVs and hybrids with regenerative braking perform better in cities is because the extra aerodynamic drag at highway speeds greatly exceeds the energy losses of braking. But if you end up doing a lot of braking, that can flip it the other way around. Really wish you'd tested this since the vehicle is designed as a delivery van. How is range affected by lots of stop and go?
I'm not sure if i'm missing something but at 34p per kwh at 1.2 miles per kwh that van is costing 28p per mile. My sprinter is doing a mile on 27p of diesel....... (uk prices for fuel)
Ford needs to come up with a better battery solution? Also cheap solar panel system on the roof of the van can add several miles per hour or fully charge thr van in many parts of the country?
really interested in long-term battery life while using maximum charging voltage and rates compared to a slower charge rate at lower voltage. I hear that the high rate charge will cut long-term battery life significantly is used all the time. What say y'all
I would expect energy consumed by cabin heating to be a function of time elapsed vs. distance traveled. So higher consumption at low city speeds and lots of time stopped makes sense.
I have a fully loaded d transit going into production this week . I have a 2016 transit med room med length . YTD I have spent $2139,000 on gas . So Is price a factor ! To me no
Battery swopping and dual battery option would make it little bit more practical. but swopping 500kg battery might not be easy/quick. It can be a van for some people but I am afraid not for majority of van drivers. Within next 3 years there is a chance for better battery technologies but my guess is that most of vans wont be electric for next 10 maybe 15years. I hope someday it will be EV drivers holding some good arguments against ICE vans ;) but at the moment diesel vans are the only option for majority of van drivers.
Hate to say it guys, but as a delivery vehicle, you need to drive this around a road course loop of 4-5 miles, one with hills, stop signs and stop lights, again and again until you reach the end of battery range. Driving on the highway is not the normal use case for a vehicle like this.
The argument falls down when you consider that 116 miles gives the out and back driver say 3 hours plus time to unload and then it needs to go on overnight charge. Therefore the business either has to work half days or use two vans. May work for trades within a limited area or other limited applications but certainly won’t work for all businesses and this I where it will fail. Where will the second hand market be? Maybe this is where the trades will pick up their vans, but will they be last 15 years? Won’t be using those as stealth campers or come to think of it the bare chassis won’t be basing camper vans on them. Nail was hit on the head with the statement “will appeal to businesses that want to promote a green image”.
Why less range in a city? That's easy, repeated accelerations use more power than cruise. Remember that electric motors produce the most torque, AND consume the most power, at low RPMs under load. Getting a fully-loaded van up to speed, then down, then up is always going to use more power than steady-state cruise over the same distance, even WITH regen braking. Even when you consider the aerodynamic drag of highway driving vs city driving, modern vehicles are pretty well optimized for it. The raw amperage to maintain highway speeds is going to be less than the amps needed to get something heavy moving from a stop.
Wow, awful range 😮 the company I contract for here in the UK has around 1000 owner operator drivers, with the daily mileage ranging from 150 (very rare) through to 200-300 (70% of drivers) and around 20% of drivers at 300+ miles. The thought of adding a few hours per day just to charge, on an already 12 hour day, is depressing 💩
Its depressing that you think this specific product is good for your use case. Its certainly and obviously not. You - and i - have to wait for vehicles with enough cargo space AND battery size to fulfill our needs.
I average about 150 miles a day in my Renault trafic, I know a lot of people who regularly do double that but according to Mercedes the "average" van does 62 miles a day? Yeah right, that's why most vans have 250k on the clock by the time they're 3 years old.
@@sambrooks7862 exactly that!! So far I've only seen E.vans in symbolic roles, Thames water, public utilities etc, and some large companies run a few within their massive diesel fleets, to show the world how caring they are! 🤣 I'm not particularly against EV's, the cars are perfectly suited to millions of non commercial drivers, and are improving all the time (unlike the cost and infrastructure) but the vans seem to be expensive, and lagging behind..
The important question is, how much does it cost per charge to travel that range. I saw a video where it cost $100 to charge a Rivian with a range of 325, which makes it inferior to an internal combustion engine. The elephant in the room no one discusses Cost per mile A vehicle that has a range of 100 should cost less than $20 to charge or it’s not worth buying.
Most fleets will charge with level 2 charging overnight, which costs a fraction of DC fast charging. Off-peak electricity rates are as low 5 cents per kwh in many places, which would make a full charge $3.50. If your electricity rates are on the high end at 20 cents per kwh, it would still be only $14. That translates to a cost per mile of between 3 cents and 15 cents per mile.
If these are used to deliver goods from distribution centres to customers, then they will get charged at the depot, or, in the case of supermarket home deliveries, at any of the company's shops with charging stations. If the depots and shops have huge solar PV arrays generating energy to sell back to the energy providers, then charging costs are likely to be very negligible.
The city range was probably less because you were constantly accelerating that massive load up to speed from 0 (or near 0 mph). Keeping a heavy vehicle going at a constant speed takes less energy because of momentum.
Yes, your theory makes a lot of sense. The van probably doesn't regen nearly as much energy as it takes to get that load moving. Thanks for watching and commenting! - Craig
@@craigcole5497 coasting wins over Regen in the conservation of energy (momentum) efficiency race. Anticipation to minimizing braking needs will yield better city efficiency. Also, as was hypothesize, more time spent at low speed means more climate control use duration, relative to distance covered. What was the tyre pressure? Rolling resistance could be dub optimal.
That’s not exactly how an EV works. You will get more range in the city than Highway. Just reverse the numbers from an ice vehicle and you will be correct.
Interesting, thanks for the vid. Personally I think the way forward will be integrated induction loops laid into the road surface, then no one has to worry about battery range etc. The technology is out there. Of course will need to mitigate for the effects the weather/snow cover.
What cargo weight is the EV sacrificing because of the EV nonladen weight, compared to a gas/ desal Ford Transit Van ? Will the batt still accept a charge when the temapure drops well below 32F ?
It should, as the electricity from the charging station also power the battery temperature control system and prime the battery at an optimal operating temperature.
This van is a complete no-go in the UK, and this is why.... all vans of this size are limited to 3500kgs gross (7700lbs), mostly because that's the heaviest vehicle you can drive on a car licence, now then, this van weighs 9500lbs which is 4318kgs which includes a payload of 3000lbs(1300kgs), if it was limited to a gross weight of 3500kgs, that would mean a payload of barely 500kgs, you could put TWICE that amout in a new Vauxhall Combo!!
Furthermore, my diesel lwb hightop transit has a 3500kgs gross weight, and I can carry 1500kgs. Takes 5mins to fill up, does 500miles to a tank (fully loaded most of the time), when I get to site I can leave it idling and use the onboard 3000w power inverter to run all my tools, cement mixer, disc cutter, battery chargers etc.
At an average 12.5 cents per kWh it’d be $8.50. We don’t typically give total cost to charge because electricity rates vary wildly from region to region. DCFC rates are also higher.
Lights, wipers, radio are negligible compared to the energy needed for driving and heating. As an example, my Hyundai Ioniq Electric shows the consumption for the electric motor, the climate and all other electronics in the car. Typical values are 13 kW for the motor, 1 kW for AC in winter and 300 Watts for all the other electronics. For the transit I guess you can double the values. Other factors which reduce the range are higher air density in winter, headwinds and extreme wet or snowy roads.
I do not think the heating is the problem. When on highway you have greater wind chill factor, sucking out the heat through the windows and roof. Where I think your problem is in speed pedal (gas peddle) pushing it to hard will eat energy more quickly. Then if your regen braking is not doing the reverse of your acceleration, you can not regain that wasted energy.
Vehicles use much much more power accelerating than they do cruising. The motor isn't 100% efficient. Accelerating and regeneration braking is far less efficient than cruising. That's why it used more energy round town. Also, the heater will use about the same power, but if the round town trip took longer than the highway trip (likely, due to lower average speed), the heater (and all other electeonics) will have been running for more time and therefore use more energy (even though the power is the same).
Lower town usage is due to you not using the 'L' setting, also the performance in the video did not take into account that you had the transit in 'ECO' Mode. The statement about the motor power output and torque is just ridiculous. It is as though you are comparing to other ICE US vehicles which do not output their power until a certain rev range, where as a motor produces maximum torque from start. Ford have set the power delivery to ensure that the maximum torque is not instantly available to mitigate load shift.
Can’t believe you guys didn’t figure that one out, fully loaded stop and go consumes way more than constant speed, yes even at high speed … These tests have been done over and over again, there is really hardly any difference in a fully loaded pickup truck and empty on the highway …. Probably that remark was to get more comments and more views as comments would flow in ;-)
*shhh* you caught us. To be fair we weren't trying strictly to drive comment engagement, because there might be something we just overlooked. Also, EVs are controversial enough right now people are going to comment anyway. So we were honest in asking, even if we knew that part of it was to get people chatting a bit :) Thanks for watching.
Only 116 miles of range? There's no way this would work as a platform for a Class B motorhome (RV) conversion, but I guess Ford is marketing this version strictly as a "local delivery van" for companies like Amazon, DHL, and bakery/food service companies. Depending on where it will be used, electricity is still cheaper than gasoline, and WAY cheaper than diesel fuel, so I guess it would be attractive to some buyers who can live with the short range.
@@nameberry220 - I just did some research to see just what the lifecycle costs of a diesel vs. battery-electric van might be. First off, the company still marketing a van of any kind with a diesel engine in the US is Mercedes Benz, so lets compare their diesel v. electric offering. 1. Since this is a comparison of commercial delivery vans. I priced out the largest and longest MB Sprinter commercial van: 170" wheelbase, high roof, 6,250 pound payload. This is what a large-scale delivery service would probably buy. It's also what an RV conversion would probably be based on. With the high-output (211 hp) diesel, it's $66,090. Fully loaded, it probably gets about 18 mpg, so for a 100,000 mile service life, at $5.00/gallon (current price of diesel in California), it will burn about 5,560 gallons of fuel, at a cost of $27,780. 20 oil changes at $100 each (diesels take 12 quarts of oil) = $2,000. Total cost not counting possible repairs and other maintenance besides routine oil changes: $95,870. Cost per mile for 100,000 mile estimated service life in commercial service = 95.87¢/mile. 2. Ford E-Transit Cargo Van. I priced a build for the longest wheelbase (140"), high roof, and highest payload (3,330 pounds). Purchase price for this vehicle - $60,865. Energy cost: The Transit has a 68kw-hr battery that delivers about 108 miles of range for the High Roof van. Charging between midnight and 06:00 costs 10¢/kw-hr. It costs about $7 to fully charge the battery, so that's 700¢/108 miles = 6.5¢/mile. There is no combustion engine, so no oil changes, except transmission oil (3 changes in 100,000 miles at a cost of about $70 each time for the oil). The purchase price of $60,865.00/ divided by 100,000 miles = 61¢/mile. Add the battery charging cost, and you get 67¢/mile. So, the Ford Transit E-Van has a lifecycle cost to the owner that is at least 30% LESS than for the Mercedes Sprinter, which is currently the only diesel van available in the US. And I didn't even count the $7,500 tax incentive for the Ford E-van. The issue of "what will it cost to replace the battery when it wears out?" is irrelevant to Commercial delivery service. By the time either van has racked up 100,000 miles, the original owners will be replacing them, so they don't have to worry about the battery replacement. Commercial owners only care about "what will this vehicle cost to operate, will it get the job done, will it be reliable, and will I be able to get it serviced?". As for reliability and service: Electric vehicles need 40% less maintenance than gas or diesel vehicles. There are probably 10 times more Ford dealerships in North America than there are Mercedes-Benz dealers. So which delivery van do you think a company like Fed Ex, DHL, or Amazon is going to pick?
When accelerating it is important to keep the needle in the power meter around 50. The consumption is much higher when the needle is around 100. So maybe the city consumption in the video was higher because the driver has a more aggressive driving style.
You might want to try with a long range EV like a Blazer or Lyriq an experiment for how long it takes to drive from say Bangor Maine to Denver Co to Disney World. Vs fly the same route on the same days. And various costs involved . Can the EV be faster or cheaper? And better as the holiday is about enjoying the journey and seeing where you go instead of flying and seeing lineups and angry people, delays and luggage that doesn't arrive. Which has better food and who arrives happier. Is it better to fly 2 kids and 2 adults or drive 2 kids and 2 adults. Pick an EV with good range and self driving and might be used and paid for by not paying for airline tickets etc... Maybe try 1st class and Airport Lounges instead of Sardine class and terminal seating.
Honestly, it does not seem any less powerful than a 2.2L Duratorq or 2.0L new AdBlue Diesel in Europe. The previous 2.4L MK6 was a powerful engine. But even with the highest bhp spec and 2.2L engine, my van is struggling if there is any grade and I am nowhere near full load capacity. I pretty much have to keep RPM in the turbo sweet-spot range, or I will decelerate. So the performance is fine I think. Range, I mean, as you said, delivery vehicle. I do 600-800 miles of driving in one tank. Maybe one day we'll get an EV like that. Or a hybrid. I hope.
odd thing here is I just retired from being a fleet manager at a shop that was switching from Chevy to Ford as I was walking out the door 3 years ago. When I started there 25 years ago, we had a fleet of Chevy Astro vans. They were small but you couldn't kill them. When those were no longer in production, we went to Chevy Express. Bigger van but hardly any major difference in fuel economy. (1-2 MPG mixed driving) Chevy stopped making the AWD and Ford offered it so that was the reason to change. Again, hardly any change in fuel economy, although the GVW was up quite a bit. They still have a mix of vehicles from the smallest Transit to the high top versions, and even a few Mercedes Metris vans. This would be an almost perfect fit for an EV fleet, with under 100 miles a day and charging at night, although I can hear the moaning / groaning from here because they all take the vans home at night. IOW, how to work out charging at home by employees.... especially the ones who don't own a home.
Employees taking home the van is a concern, and Ford's fleet software accounts for that. The manager can generate a report at the end of the month and then reimburse the employee. Now if they don't have the ability to charge at home, that is a problem (for sure).
@@EVPulse .... yes, Amazon or the USPS would expect night charging at their shop, and so would small business where we're talking about the owner parking in his own driveway, but I doubt there's software developed to keep an eye on things like, "hey boss... I had to stop along the pike and charge for a half hour" which really means a paid coffee break.
@@rupe53 maybe, maybe not. the fleet management software that ford uses tracks location, time, charging costs, maintenance, and the ilk. it's pretty robust for keeping track of what people are doing and when they're doing it. not a solution for everyone, but we talked to some fleet operators who are legit excited to try it out.
As an example I use my Nissan Leaf for food delivery. I don't have a charger for my older apartment. So I have to charge it at community chargers. Most of the time that works surprisingly well. Occasionally there are problems getting a charger. They can be busy. I expect that a person who couldn't charge at home, would leave the vehicle at work to charge and take transit home.
@@jimthain8777 ... I hate to keep blowing holes in the system. but even though our area does have some public transit, the transit system is limited to the main drag in towns along the valley, which means (in theory) you could take a bus or train the next 20 miles and be closer to home. The shortcoming is this valley is 10 miles wide and public transit is limited hours.... and sometimes canceled in bad weather. This is just part of the reason people will continue to buy ICE vehicles instead of EVs.
All vehicles are less efficient in the city compared to highways, that is because your acceleration drain is far higher than your regen. Living in a valley would make this van unusable, you'd could remove 20-40 miles of range from climbing, it takes a lot of energy to carry heavy weights up hill and your regen back down the hill is never going to be enough to replace it.
Need more range or payload? We check out the new Harbinger van at CES 2023 ua-cam.com/video/2QH5eg6r274/v-deo.html
Just got mine in, it's amazing. Range is great too.
Congratulations! Have you used it for running power tools yet?
@@sandyfordd1843 Didn't take that option. It's only 2.3kW and as an electrician, all my tools are cordless, even my large SDS's. It takes up some space where I now have racking and also it weighs quite a bit, I'm already at the limit of the max weight here in europe. (3500kg max). It's 2600kg instead of 2300kg empty for a regular transit. So that's the only disadvantage for my usage tbh.
A year on do you still love it, what range do you get fully loaded ?
I’m an electrician and we average around 80 miles round trip. It’s extremely rare I go over 120miles a day. I understand having a parcel delivery business wouldn’t work, but vast majority of tradesman I know would be working in it’s range. I’ve watched many different videos from tradesman who absolutely love their e-transits and are ordering more. Funny that the only negative comments are from people who don’t own one.
Welcome to the world of UA-cam. Also, thanks for watching and commenting, we appreciate it :)
Parcel delivery in an urban area with a dense route with many stops would still work. Doing that even over a long 10 hour day, would be hard to do over 80 miles in one day. I've read even postal delivery vans for the USPS rarely do more than like 60 miles a day.
You mentioned that you put the van in Eco mode. The acceleration is horrible and eco-mode you’re only getting 50% power. If you put it in normal mode, you will be more impressed. I surprise a lot of drivers who try to cut me off. As far as range, My numbers are around 90 miles a day. I average around 1.7 to 1.9 miles per kilowatt hour. A lot of it on the freeway keeping up with traffic at around 81 miles an hour.(top speed). I love the fact that I can drive in the carpool lane, and that the van is equipped with active cruise control.
So far from November to August in my E-transit I've averaged 2.1 miles per kw/hr over 7500 miles or so. In the winter when it was below 0F outside range dropped to maybe around 80 miles in a day. In the summer, sometimes I've gotten as high as 148 (city driving with very little freeway use except maybe 1-2 exits and then back off). Not a huge deal, being in the HVAC/R trade, business is slow in the winter anyway. On the other hand, having that nearly instant hot heat on a super cold day is a game changer. I can turn on the HVAC with my phone and it takes literally maybe 10-15 minutes to melt off all the overnight snow and ice. And not having to wait for it to warm up after stopping to do a job for a couple hours in the middle of the day is super nice.
Love this van all day long .
My EV loosed about 30% of range in cold weather and heat running. So my guess is this EV transit would gain about 30% of range is warm weather without heat running
But then the aircon will have kicked in.
Which is Bull Shit as no one is going to drive without heat and it wasn't even cold in their test and this has to work 100% of the time. Which means 85 miles is still too high in reality. This is useless
My company uses these and we get on avg 88 miles on a single 100% charge. In the winter maybe 60-70miles with a 100% charge but the charging time also increases drastically to the point they are basically out of service for an entire shift.
@@w8stral LOL tradesman have gotten soft. I worked my Dad's construction company form 80s to 90s as young man and our 60s van didn't have working heater or AC. Hot? open a window and floor vents. Cold? put on 2nd layer of wool socks, beanie and some work gloves.
Yea, lets go backwards buying vehicles which have a TINY range and zero comforts... yea, that will sell well. Oh right, its about religion, not progress. @@dailyrider2975
Guys thanks for video! I find all info here relevant and very well presented! Thanks! You answered a lot of questions for me in a technical and clear way! The chewbacca grrrrr 😅😅😅
Thank you so much Gentelmen I run a fleet of vans in the UK and really want to move over to EVs, but this video has saved me a lot of time and possibly money as it shows me they are just not there yet some days needing 200 miles return trips + load, etc it just wouldn't work. I guess its back to diesel.
Is there a petrol option for transit size vans? With the current cost difference between petrol and diesel fuel, a petrol engined van begins to look attractive, modern petrol turbo DI engines can be tuned to have low end torque, and the mileage difference would be easily offset by the 30p+ per litre fuel price difference and not needing adblue...
As you say, EV vans aren't there yet, seems to me that petrol would make sense until they are, especially as a hybrid.
The Mercedes eSprinter would be the only option coming in at 295 miles. It's a lot bigger of an initial sticker price though. I’d hope to see something close to 400-500 miles to convert to a campervan.
@@longrange1977 here in North America the sprinter transit and promaster (fiat) are all available in gasoline powered versions and are more common than diesel. The promaster is not available as a diesel here I don't think. At my work they have an f550 tow truck with a gas v10. It's absolutely horrible on fuel but it continues to work every day unlike the diesels which have too many emmisions problems. A Hino 358 I used to drive used to cost them around $30,000 a year in emmisions repairs. It had 500,000km on it when they got rid of it. It left me stranded multiple times. Now I am driving an international with an L9 Cummins and it has 54,000k on it and it has already had problems. It gets better mileage at 15 tonnes than the gas ford does weighing maybe 4 tonnes however
EXCELLENT VIDEO!!!! It may give option for a DYI class B camper on the cheap!!!
The real question is what is that range like after 3-5 years of being used and charged every day? What about when its actually cold and below freezing? Will that limited range be cut down to an unusable range? Hows it handle 5 degree weather? Is it useless?
Heat is a huge factor for city driving. Also, regenerative braking doesn't really increase your range relative to not stopping. Slower speeds should, as you said, but if it's resistive heat, I expect that cost you. I thought the braking pattern is interesting. I have a 2013 Volt (for 9 years now) and the blended brakes in it are super smooth and indistinguishable from raw friction except for the green bar - I find that perfect and don't look forward to having to give that up to paddles or other mechanisms (it also has "low", mimicking 2nd in an automatic, similar to what you described, and that is very useful in stop-n-go traffic).
Overall, it sounded like a useful option for users needing (relatively) low mileage per day (for me, the ~40 mi range at moderate temps is totally sufficient day to day, but that's commuting, not delivering).
Now, get me a "high" range transit that can be converted to micro-rv ... 😋
Want more Ford E-Transit goodness? Watch this! --> ua-cam.com/video/V14-TOOeGEE/v-deo.html
The reason for the better highway range was you spend a lot more energy getting up to speed than you can possibly recover from regen braking. Hence you spend a lot less energy if you have to get up to speed once. If you tested while it was empty you would get the results you expected.
@@MrJturner74 that range is terrible and over 1 hour 20m charging time is a real wage waste. Overall a commercial waste of time.
@@gregmatthies8128 10-80% charging speed is all that matters, no one goes past that regularly since the last 20% is a lot slower
@@kimekholm7178 then the range is even less with less battery charge. How can this be a good thing. Are you delusional!
The range on the 2nd charge is less, yes, but miles of range/charging time is better. Remember, these vehicles are designed for routes where they don't need to charge during the day, 2hich for many (not all) vans is all they do, especially last-mile delivery or local city work vans.
Hey great video boys 1st time viewer and loved it new subscriber 😁 see yous in the next video
i do and average of 350 miles a day in my Merc Sprinter.......pickingup and dropping off ....loaded most of the day.... i get around 390-430 miles ..... i wouldn't have time in the day to charge 2 or 3 times and still get my work done ....these vans are ok if you are doing short city driving ......no good on motorways with long distances in between .....and tight schedules
At 10:30 it is clearly stated by the creators and by Ford that this van is not for everyone.
The range is a joke. That will have to be addressed before it can be used for travel use. Maybe a hybrid would be a better idea for vans.
@@glennr9913 It is designed for the urban environment, either delivery or building contractor work. Deliveries will not be fully loaded all the time so will probably get 100 miles between charges - that is more than 1/2 a day of driving so they just charge at lunch time (or swap to a second van). Contractors will be fine with it as long as there is a charging point(s) at the construction site.
@@justinstephenson9360 In a year or so they'll have better ranges. I'll wait until it suites my needs.
@@glennr9913 You'll be waiting a looooong time.
The lower range in the city could be because of the stop and go with full load, the acceleration takes the most ammount of energy, while highway crusing at constant speet usually has high consumption once you just glide at constant speed the weigth is no longer a factor. (unless hills come)
That's the exact reasoning why the Tesla Semi has two motors usually shut off but used for acceleration or big loads.
I just got a Renault Trafic sport + diesel, I fill it up in five minutes and it is good for 650-700 miles. These EVs are ok if you only need short range I guess, but it looks like you need to wait about six hours of charge time to cover the same range that I can get in less than five minutes at a pump.
The charging time is just *4 seconds* if you charge at destination, just the time to plug.
@@didierpuzenat7280 If range is not an issue then EVs are ok I guess, but I regularly do 140 + miles in a day for work, plus my van is my only vehicle so I like to know I can use it whenever needed.
Well said, I just don't understand why anybody would buy a EV.
Ok but what you gonna do when saudi arabia stops exporting oil to you just like russia did?
@@UnipornFrumm America has plenty of oil.
3:08 For the metric viewers 3000lbs = 1.36Tonnes.
Do you think the high box version would be good for a stealth camper conversion? Looks a decent amount of floor space.
Great to hear this has an App control. The Citreon van I tested was very basic in terms of user control and configuration.
13:11 I like the fact that the front cab design allows you to scoot over to the passenger side. I wish electric cars had that ability! Also I believe in the UK, the passenger side can be configured with a two person seat.
Did you adjust the wheel pressures to suit the max payload? I always run my cars at the highest load rated pressure to reduce rolling resistance.
Great review. Excellent to see this.
They should offer it with the ER Lightning pack, AWD, and the power plugs from the lightning. That would make it awesome for that, cause you could travel much easier, and would have a lot more battery to power stuff with. Oh, and a solar roof option.
For the whole planet, albeit the backward USA.
@@fjalics ... while a solar option is a nice idea for off-grid camping, the gain of maybe 1-2 KW of charging would be painfully slow for any other reason.
@@rupe53 I agree, unless it's an Aptera(which isn't in production yet) and you park in the sun, in a sunny place. Most people are better off putting solar on their roof.
Someone’s testing a 266 hp Transit and finds it fine for “around town use”… that’s about 100hp more than a highly optioned normal diesel Transit on the continent that gave the world the Transit to begin with.
It was at max payload so it’s not as quick as it’d be, on average, since the van well seldom be at max payload doing deliveries. But your point is well taken.
Accelerating from stops consumes huge amounts of energy. City driving is chock full of stops. Green cities should really figure out how to minimize stops for their citizens. It's due to static vs dynamic friction at the start (why some trucks try to keep rolling hoping for the light to change) plus accelerating a mass eats up the 'fuel' more than steady state.
Yo mama
😅
The city route is taking more power to get the loads moving. I think an light loaded Van, like Amazon packages. Will do better.
Thx for the figures!
I was going to say similar, high speed driving is more about tire and wind drag, stop start around town driving is more about weight (force = mass * acceleration etc.)
Bingo! I'm retired from a pipe trade and city driving kills milage with stop and go when hauling any weight above 2k pounds. My bet is, the regeneration system can't match the energy required to move an additional 3k of weight from a dead stop. If it could, Ford would face multiple lawsuits for whiplash and rear end accidents...
Regarding range discrepancy, did Ford say or do anything regarding the gearing for the electric motor? I'd assume that van use cases primarily spend more of their time between 15 and 60mph, not 35-75 like most POVs. If they didnt change anything, could a tall ratio cause the motor to just work harder (in terms of it's efficiency curve) at lower speeds?
I think you’re on to something with the working harder at slower speeds because of payload. I think though mostly it’s the heater trying to keep me warm. - Chad
That 13 second zero to 60 suggests a very different gearing from a typical passenger EV.
The lost efficiency in town could be partly related to bringing the load up to speed, but resistive heating is likely a big factor.
Can't wait for the next generation eSprinter and Ford. They'll have much better range, probably faster charging and hopefully a heat pump option.
The new 2nd gen eSprinter is being made in South Carolina and should be on sale I think this year.
70-116 miles on one charge is about as much use as a chocolate teapot! My Vauxhall Combo van does 500 miles on one tank of diesel (OK, it’s a much smaller van - that transit you’re testing is large by UK standards, but still - you’d need at least 300 miles range to be useful!)
I'm not sure if i'm missing something but at 34p per kwh at 1.2 miles per kwh that van is costing 28p per mile.
My sprinter is doing a mile on 27p of diesel.......
Fantastic review. The van didnt looked like it was squatting at all, other than power did it seem to handle that weight well while driving around town?
Surprisingly well. I joked with Craig that maybe Ford didn’t actually put that much weight in it when it didn’t squat much.
The reality? The van could probably handle a bunch more weight. - Chad
Also you’re very kind. Thank you for watching!
What Chad said... THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR WATCHING AND COMMENTING! You are too kind.
- Craig
every flower shop should have one.
An informative video. However it would be super useful for everyone who's not in the USA to convert your imperial measurements to metric.
Cheers
Great point! We'll be sure to take that into consideration for future videos.
Fuck metric
After seeing your reviews on the Ford E truck and van, it seems reasonable some might choose the truck over the van, and add on a cap/box to suit their needs. Better range and performance, while also able to carry a few passengers. Peace - John
Great stuff!!!! Thank you for being as (normal) as possible!
Repeatedly having to accelerate that max payload likely used much more energy. Regeneration is not 100% efficient (nor is acceleration). At highway speed that additional mass may have helped at a fairly constant speed to help overcome the wind resistance force.
The charge time on that thing is *45x* longer than my current van.
Are you seriously asking why the efficiency is worse in the city! You are meant to be the experts. My guess would be the acceleration?
We are, because even if we say what we think it's typically questioned with other theories. So why not just ask for the theories up front?
So driving at 60mph in a real van, you will get to your destination in one and a half hours. Which is how long it will take to charge this electric van to do the same distance.. So OK if you want to spend your life waiting for your vehicle to charge. And don't forget you have to wait another one and a half hours before you can start the journey back, and that's not allowing how long it would take you to find a charging point.
No one drives 24 hours a day do they. So unless you are doing cross country this won't be so much of a problem.
@@jonwelch564 just think that one out, van driver working 40 hours a week. How many deliveries can he do in a real van, vers how many can he do in a E van.
@@jonwelch564 What about companies that use the same truck for different users. If you had 20 drivers,10 driving days and 10 driving nights. In an EV motor that is buying 20 vehicles because of recharge times of 8-10 hrs.
Buying diesel van you only need 10 vans for 20 drivers.
Also no mention of battery degradation with new batteries every 5-10 years. Diesel engines last a lot longer.
@@paulcowan3222 no company runs it's van 24/7 and vans need to be loaded, so there time for you.
And regarding battery degradation, Tesla's data shows after 250,000km on average they lose 9%. I don't know how many companies will buy a new van and run it all the way up to 250k I doubt many. A friend has 40+ vans and he sells them probably around the 100,000km mark because they are just too unreliable. You know, way too many moving parts wearing each other out.
Electric vans have hardly any moving part, and due to regenerative brakes, even the brakes will wear less. The more you look the more of a win they will become.
It's still early days and it will get a lot better. There are a lot of very clever people working on this.
@@stephensmith7919 I have no idea I don't know how far a delivery van drives. But for myself I don't drive more than about 60 miles in a day. My current diesel van will be good for many years yet. So I won't be changing any time soon.
ER - Western Cornwall to London and back in a day, LWB hi-top Transit.
Dead easy in a diesel, but electrically impossible
You said it’s ok for delivery but our two local Amazon depots where they deliver to us are 31 miles away and 46 miles away so no good for them . Some of the transit van I’ve seen have done over 140,000 miles in 3 years
The range was worse in the city because it is being asked to do more work. On the highway most of the work is wind resistance. In the city it's mostly getting the vehicle up to speed.
In a car the wind resistance will need more effort to overcome than pottering around town but when you have a lot of weight to move that changes and once you start getting heavy it swings the other way.
Regen helps a little but even the best regen systems only get around 30% return on power used and thats in one small island of efficiency. To actually stop you will need the friction brakes for the last few mph and the higher the load on the regen system the more is lost to heat.
As an example lets say an empty Transit needs 1.5 kWh per mile city and 2.0 highway. When you fully load it that highway number is only going to go up very slightly because once its rolling the weight makes very little difference (a small amount more rolling resistance only) so it may still only need 2.1kWh per mile.
On the other hand that load in a city will need to be constantly accelerated and controlled so could easily add half the power need over an empty van. In this case that would be 2.25 kWh per mile and even though that is just an example it looks pretty similar to your test results.
There are also other things like taking longer to do the same distance which means all the ancillaries will be running for longer so if the heater, wipers, lights and so on are using the same power per hour and you take twice the time to do the run they will consume double the power overall. Even things like the EPAS system will have to do a lot more work in the city and will therefore use more electricity. Its not going to add up to that much overall but when you only have 68kWh to play with in the first place, losing the 8 of that to keep warm and be able to see does have an effect.
I like the E-transit but I feel like its a bit of a half ar5ed attempt. Ford already have a Mach-E with a much larger battery so why not use that? Or two of that because the only use profiles this fits is short, last mile deliverys and very local tradesmen.
Any van which needs to earn its living based on the work it does will almost never run empty or even low on load because more in the back generally means more money earned.
If it can't charge quickly it needs a large range. If it can't do either its very limited.
I just don;t understand why there aren't at least larger battery options or better yet a range extender.
24:29 No, the heater does not consume more energy when not moving ;-). But your measure is about distance, not time, and off course at a lower speed it takes more time to make a given distance. And of course the longer the heater works to more energy is used. So to address that issue it would be nice to have a heat pump. Finally, the way generative breaking is implemented (with the pedal) may not be so smart and efficient. The last issue is probably weight, regenerative breaking only retake a fraction of the energy use to accelerate, so I would assume that in cities weight matters a lot.
A lot of maintenance costs will be much lower as the regenerative braking saves big time on brakes.
Like my ambulance with a break retarder
In the UK Amazon decided to use these E Transits in my area.
I live around 25 miles from the nearest Amazon which us in Ipswich in Suffolk. I live on the outskirts of Colchester in Essex. Between the depot and my house there is only 1 place where the drivers can recharge. It got so ridiculous with up to 9 Amazon vans queueing to use the 4 available chargers, that in the end Amazon switched to using diesel Transits again.
They saw sense in the end.
@@davelowe1977 in the end they will be ev, once the infrastructure is there. Just a matter of time. We have a depot in Deeside Wales, I see a mixture of ev and fuel presently
@@fydstar tell me what effect you think a refrigerated van will have on range? Simply turning the air con on is barely practicable.
@@alanbell2156 it won’t be overnight but eventually. A Ford F-150 lightning can power a house in the USA for 10 days, so in the UK that’s would be weeks. So a refrigerated van should be no problem given the right battery capacity. Once the battery power to weight to cost ratio comes down, it’s inevitable I think?
@@fydstar I was waiting for you to come away with that rubbish. Just surprised it took you so long. You guys are completely deluded. Or maybe just being sponsored by Ford?
Your credibility is now zero.
If you are stop-start driving in town, surely you are using more power to get the van moving from a standstill at the lights than you are when cruising at a steady speed. This can't be that much different than in a conventional vehicle because, as the man said, ye cannae change the laws o' physics!
Was 0-60 loaded or empty? Does this have a Heat Pump?
Loaded. No heat pump.
Could you do an evaluation of the service and maintenance of an EV?
I am a big advocate of electric vehicles, however lithium ion batteries degrade over time and their necessary charging management system/software can give rise to premature range loss. My experience with diagnosing loss of range has lead me to believe that the manufacturer (in this case Ford) has done very little in providing diagnostic tools and training for their service staff to find and resolve the root cause of battery range loss.
Thanks,
-John-
How many miles did it take to get to 2%
Surly physics says that start-stop city driving will use more power to move the weight from a stop position each time, and continuing movement without stopping will use less ?!?!?
Might have really validated the figures if you had included some actual daily mileages from some local delivery companies.
Sorry, I did not stick around till the end. In fact after 1:40 I decided to not stick around for the beginning.
10% less range can be attributed to driving style discrepencies...
I don't know anything about the delivery business. Is 81 miles enough to deliver packages all day? How far does an Amazon truck drive every day?
Amazon EDV have ranges of between 120 and 150 miles, not sure if that's fully loaded or not
@@justicar5 do they? I recently spoke to an Amazon driver and he told me that his van, I'm 99% sure it was a Mercedes, claims 90 miles on a full charge, however that's empty and in ideal conditions. When I was talking to him about a month about it was minus 2 and he reckoned that the previous day he ran out of charge at 30 miles and had to wait for another van (diesel) to come out to him and take all the parcels then wait with the van for breakdown while he continued his deliveries in a diesel sprinter. Apparently this is a daily occurrence.
Would be good to repeat the test with3/4 load and 1/2 load and empty. This would give allow those that carry bulky but light loads to see how much range they can expect
I still can’t believe there aren’t more hybrid vans available. I really thought Toyota would cross there hybrid technology over to commercial vehicles, it’s a no brainer at this point.
OK, my rule of thumb is 10 kWh = 1 gallon so 6 gallons of gas. So my Hyundai entourage gets 22 mpg at best or 132 miles. I'll edit this comment at end of video after results. .......Ok, so end of video using my rule of thumb about 15mpg. Which is about right for 3,000 lbs load in full size van. Just looked online and 17 mpg is what a regular ICE transit van gets empty. So impressive. 75 mile in 30 min is also, for me, totally doable. I've also seen video of plumber taking his E-transit more than 130 miles in one charge, so load and temp big difference. I think range was MASSIVELY cut down by having heater on all day. Also max weight I think affected city range, regen is not as impressive as people think, pulling up from stop is a big draw on energy. USED: $40 K for E-transit 2023 used with less than 2k on odometer, about 10 in 100 miles from me.
how many tons of coal does it take to charge it's battery?
A gajillion.
Reviewing the final "real world" range numbers, I concur that the LOWER range in the city-street test was probably caused by running the heater at 70°F. It would be interesting to test this van on a 68°F day, without any use of heater or sir conditioning, and see what kind of range it can get under ideal conditions. I have an OBD-II transmitter on my Prius Prime, and an app that displays a bunch of powertrain data in real-time. At 35 mph on flat ground, without any of the lights, accessories, or the heater or a/c in operation, the car's various computers draw about 200 watts, and the MG2 propulsion motor draws about 5,000 watts. This is consistant with the car's actual range of about 33 miles on the 6 kw-hr "available" capacity of the traction battery. The car's HVAC system uses a heat pump driven by a 3-phase electric motor, and it draws 1,800 watts. So running the heat or air conditioning increases the drain on the battery by a whopping 36%. The E-Transit van has a much larger battery than my Prius, but it also has a much greater interior volume, so I would guess that the Transit's heat pump is probably at least 2 or 3 times larger than what's in a Prius.
I did a comparison of the E-Transit high-roof cargo van to the Mercedes Benz Sprinter Van with a diesel engine, to see what kind of life-cycle costs a Fleet operator might incur, using these vans for package delivery. My analysis for the Sprinter took into account initial purchase price, plus diesel fuel and the cost of 20 oil changes for 100,000 miles. I came up with a cost of about 96¢/mile, assuming $5.00/gallon for diesel fuel. For the Ford E-Transit, in it's longest, high-roof configuration, figure charging at 10¢/kw-hr, 90 miles range per charge, 3 transmission fluid changes in 100,000 miles at $150 each, and 40% less maintenance costs overall, the Ford comes in at about 65¢/mile for 100,000 miles.
The main discrepancy is that the Mercedes Diesel van has a max payload of 6,500 pounds, the Ford is 3,800 pounds, but interior volume of the two vehicles is similar, and in package delivery service, vans are rarely loaded to maximum gross weight; if they were, the packages would be so heavy the drivers couldn't handle them without using dollies, and we've all seen Amazon delivery drivers deliver almost every package carrying them in their arms - they're mostly not heavier than 20~30 pounds. So in typical package delivery service, it's interior volume that's more important, not absolute payload weight capacity.
Happy to stand around in the Great Republic
Regenerative braking is only about 30%-35% efficient. The reason EVs and hybrids with regenerative braking perform better in cities is because the extra aerodynamic drag at highway speeds greatly exceeds the energy losses of braking. But if you end up doing a lot of braking, that can flip it the other way around. Really wish you'd tested this since the vehicle is designed as a delivery van. How is range affected by lots of stop and go?
I'm not sure if i'm missing something but at 34p per kwh at 1.2 miles per kwh that van is costing 28p per mile.
My sprinter is doing a mile on 27p of diesel....... (uk prices for fuel)
It's ok having a jolly up testing one, but working with one and waiting for it to charge up when delivery drivers haven't
My new 2023 leaf 40kw was getting 200plus Km around town( 250Kms on highway). Now in -15c my percent meter is also Kms remaining.
Ford needs to come up with a better battery solution? Also cheap solar panel system on the roof of the van can add several miles per hour or fully charge thr van in many parts of the country?
Ford will get new batteries end of this year.
really interested in long-term battery life while using maximum charging voltage and rates compared to a slower charge rate at lower voltage. I hear that the high rate charge will cut long-term battery life significantly is used all the time. What say y'all
I would expect energy consumed by cabin heating to be a function of time elapsed vs. distance traveled. So higher consumption at low city speeds and lots of time stopped makes sense.
Seems fine for local deliveries, but definitely not ready for tradesman or service truck use outside of a very limited local area.
I have a fully loaded d transit going into production this week . I have a 2016 transit med room med length . YTD I have spent $2139,000 on gas . So Is price a factor ! To me no
Battery swopping and dual battery option would make it little bit more practical. but swopping 500kg battery might not be easy/quick. It can be a van for some people but I am afraid not for majority of van drivers. Within next 3 years there is a chance for better battery technologies but my guess is that most of vans wont be electric for next 10 maybe 15years. I hope someday it will be EV drivers holding some good arguments against ICE vans ;) but at the moment diesel vans are the only option for majority of van drivers.
Hate to say it guys, but as a delivery vehicle, you need to drive this around a road course loop of 4-5 miles, one with hills, stop signs and stop lights, again and again until you reach the end of battery range.
Driving on the highway is not the normal use case for a vehicle like this.
21.06: 88 mins for a 'quick' charge. Feel free to correct me if I've misinterpreted that.
The argument falls down when you consider that 116 miles gives the out and back driver say 3 hours plus time to unload and then it needs to go on overnight charge. Therefore the business either has to work half days or use two vans.
May work for trades within a limited area or other limited applications but certainly won’t work for all businesses and this I where it will fail. Where will the second hand market be? Maybe this is where the trades will pick up their vans, but will they be last 15 years? Won’t be using those as stealth campers or come to think of it the bare chassis won’t be basing camper vans on them.
Nail was hit on the head with the statement “will appeal to businesses that want to promote a green image”.
Why less range in a city? That's easy, repeated accelerations use more power than cruise. Remember that electric motors produce the most torque, AND consume the most power, at low RPMs under load. Getting a fully-loaded van up to speed, then down, then up is always going to use more power than steady-state cruise over the same distance, even WITH regen braking. Even when you consider the aerodynamic drag of highway driving vs city driving, modern vehicles are pretty well optimized for it. The raw amperage to maintain highway speeds is going to be less than the amps needed to get something heavy moving from a stop.
Thanks.
There are few if any charging stations in the small towns in the Midwest.
That's a problem.
Infrastructure needs improved, for sure. Fleet buyers will likely install chargers at their hub in this case, though.
G'day, Sounds like a good van for people that dont go anywhere.
i think ill keep my 1085 toyta truck, it just keeps going, cost my 2000 bucks to buy. keeps going going goimg thanks
We have 1 for work here.in marin county CA installing solar. Limits our workable range but good over all.
Does come to a complete stop or do you have to use the brake for a complete stop?
Wow, awful range 😮 the company I contract for here in the UK has around 1000 owner operator drivers, with the daily mileage ranging from 150 (very rare) through to 200-300 (70% of drivers) and around 20% of drivers at 300+ miles.
The thought of adding a few hours per day just to charge, on an already 12 hour day, is depressing 💩
Its depressing that you think this specific product is good for your use case. Its certainly and obviously not. You - and i - have to wait for vehicles with enough cargo space AND battery size to fulfill our needs.
@@wolfgangpreier9160 it's depressing you felt the need to comment at all.
Just do one mate
@@yiamas07 "Just do one mate" Sorry, but english is not my mothers tongue. What does that mean?
I average about 150 miles a day in my Renault trafic, I know a lot of people who regularly do double that but according to Mercedes the "average" van does 62 miles a day? Yeah right, that's why most vans have 250k on the clock by the time they're 3 years old.
@@sambrooks7862 exactly that!! So far I've only seen E.vans in symbolic roles, Thames water, public utilities etc, and some large companies run a few within their massive diesel fleets, to show the world how caring they are! 🤣
I'm not particularly against EV's, the cars are perfectly suited to millions of non commercial drivers, and are improving all the time (unlike the cost and infrastructure) but the vans seem to be expensive, and lagging behind..
The important question is, how much does it cost per charge to travel that range. I saw a video where it cost $100 to charge a Rivian with a range of 325, which makes it inferior to an internal combustion engine. The elephant in the room no one discusses Cost per mile A vehicle that has a range of 100 should cost less than $20 to charge or it’s not worth buying.
Most fleets will charge with level 2 charging overnight, which costs a fraction of DC fast charging. Off-peak electricity rates are as low 5 cents per kwh in many places, which would make a full charge $3.50. If your electricity rates are on the high end at 20 cents per kwh, it would still be only $14. That translates to a cost per mile of between 3 cents and 15 cents per mile.
If these are used to deliver goods from distribution centres to customers, then they will get charged at the depot, or, in the case of supermarket home deliveries, at any of the company's shops with charging stations.
If the depots and shops have huge solar PV arrays generating energy to sell back to the energy providers, then charging costs are likely to be very negligible.
very interesting thanks guys
Thanks for watching
The city range was probably less because you were constantly accelerating that massive load up to speed from 0 (or near 0 mph). Keeping a heavy vehicle going at a constant speed takes less energy because of momentum.
Yes, your theory makes a lot of sense. The van probably doesn't regen nearly as much energy as it takes to get that load moving. Thanks for watching and commenting!
- Craig
@@craigcole5497 coasting wins over Regen in the conservation of energy (momentum) efficiency race.
Anticipation to minimizing braking needs will yield better city efficiency.
Also, as was hypothesize, more time spent at low speed means more climate control use duration, relative to distance covered.
What was the tyre pressure? Rolling resistance could be dub optimal.
That’s not exactly how an EV works. You will get more range in the city than Highway. Just reverse the numbers from an ice vehicle and you will be correct.
Interesting, thanks for the vid. Personally I think the way forward will be integrated induction loops laid into the road surface, then no one has to worry about battery range etc. The technology is out there. Of course will need to mitigate for the effects the weather/snow cover.
What cargo weight is the EV sacrificing because of the EV nonladen weight, compared to a gas/ desal Ford Transit Van ? Will the batt still accept a charge when the temapure drops well below 32F ?
It should, as the electricity from the charging station also power the battery temperature control system and prime the battery at an optimal operating temperature.
This van is a complete no-go in the UK, and this is why.... all vans of this size are limited to 3500kgs gross (7700lbs), mostly because that's the heaviest vehicle you can drive on a car licence, now then, this van weighs 9500lbs which is 4318kgs which includes a payload of 3000lbs(1300kgs), if it was limited to a gross weight of 3500kgs, that would mean a payload of barely 500kgs, you could put TWICE that amout in a new Vauxhall Combo!!
Furthermore, my diesel lwb hightop transit has a 3500kgs gross weight, and I can carry 1500kgs. Takes 5mins to fill up, does 500miles to a tank (fully loaded most of the time), when I get to site I can leave it idling and use the onboard 3000w power inverter to run all my tools, cement mixer, disc cutter, battery chargers etc.
What about winter time? 9200 lbs holly shit 4 tons? Is it full of lead or gold?
Good business line
I really wanted to know how much the cost of a full charge.
At an average 12.5 cents per kWh it’d be $8.50. We don’t typically give total cost to charge because electricity rates vary wildly from region to region. DCFC rates are also higher.
The E-Transit is definitely Not Ready for Prime Time!
What would it's range be at night with the lights on ' and also raining 'so the wipers on ' heating on 'and maybe the radio/stereo?
Lights, wipers, radio are negligible compared to the energy needed for driving and heating. As an example, my Hyundai Ioniq Electric shows the consumption for the electric motor, the climate and all other electronics in the car. Typical values are 13 kW for the motor, 1 kW for AC in winter and 300 Watts for all the other electronics. For the transit I guess you can double the values. Other factors which reduce the range are higher air density in winter, headwinds and extreme wet or snowy roads.
I do not think the heating is the problem. When on highway you have greater wind chill factor, sucking out the heat through the windows and roof. Where I think your problem is in speed pedal (gas peddle) pushing it to hard will eat energy more quickly. Then if your regen braking is not doing the reverse of your acceleration, you can not regain that wasted energy.
Vehicles use much much more power accelerating than they do cruising. The motor isn't 100% efficient. Accelerating and regeneration braking is far less efficient than cruising. That's why it used more energy round town.
Also, the heater will use about the same power, but if the round town trip took longer than the highway trip (likely, due to lower average speed), the heater (and all other electeonics) will have been running for more time and therefore use more energy (even though the power is the same).
Lower town usage is due to you not using the 'L' setting, also the performance in the video did not take into account that you had the transit in 'ECO' Mode. The statement about the motor power output and torque is just ridiculous. It is as though you are comparing to other ICE US vehicles which do not output their power until a certain rev range, where as a motor produces maximum torque from start. Ford have set the power delivery to ensure that the maximum torque is not instantly available to mitigate load shift.
🤔 “Foot to the floor @ 35 mph?” , < minimum HWY speed? , 116 mi range?, but oh so green! 🥺😊
I've rented a few transits for some trips, I'm sure the data analyst got quite a shock at what I asked of the vehicle.
I must have missed it...what speed on the freeway? Every other car is blowing your doors off.
Speed limit is 70. We went 70.
The heater being on definitely made street driving less efficient if you do the same tests again without temperature on you will see
Can’t believe you guys didn’t figure that one out, fully loaded stop and go consumes way more than constant speed, yes even at high speed … These tests have been done over and over again, there is really hardly any difference in a fully loaded pickup truck and empty on the highway …. Probably that remark was to get more comments and more views as comments would flow in ;-)
*shhh* you caught us. To be fair we weren't trying strictly to drive comment engagement, because there might be something we just overlooked. Also, EVs are controversial enough right now people are going to comment anyway. So we were honest in asking, even if we knew that part of it was to get people chatting a bit :)
Thanks for watching.
Only 116 miles of range? There's no way this would work as a platform for a Class B motorhome (RV) conversion, but I guess Ford is marketing this version strictly as a "local delivery van" for companies like Amazon, DHL, and bakery/food service companies. Depending on where it will be used, electricity is still cheaper than gasoline, and WAY cheaper than diesel fuel, so I guess it would be attractive to some buyers who can live with the short range.
Overall lifetime cost per km will still be more than a comparable diesel van, even if electricty was free.
@@nameberry220 - I just did some research to see just what the lifecycle costs of a diesel vs. battery-electric van might be. First off, the company still marketing a van of any kind with a diesel engine in the US is Mercedes Benz, so lets compare their diesel v. electric offering.
1. Since this is a comparison of commercial delivery vans. I priced out the largest and longest MB Sprinter commercial van: 170" wheelbase, high roof, 6,250 pound payload. This is what a large-scale delivery service would probably buy. It's also what an RV conversion would probably be based on. With the high-output (211 hp) diesel, it's $66,090. Fully loaded, it probably gets about 18 mpg, so for a 100,000 mile service life, at $5.00/gallon (current price of diesel in California), it will burn about 5,560 gallons of fuel, at a cost of $27,780. 20 oil changes at $100 each (diesels take 12 quarts of oil) = $2,000. Total cost not counting possible repairs and other maintenance besides routine oil changes: $95,870. Cost per mile for 100,000 mile estimated service life in commercial service = 95.87¢/mile.
2. Ford E-Transit Cargo Van. I priced a build for the longest wheelbase (140"), high roof, and highest payload (3,330 pounds). Purchase price for this vehicle - $60,865.
Energy cost: The Transit has a 68kw-hr battery that delivers about 108 miles of range for the High Roof van. Charging between midnight and 06:00 costs 10¢/kw-hr.
It costs about $7 to fully charge the battery, so that's 700¢/108 miles = 6.5¢/mile. There is no combustion engine, so no oil changes, except transmission oil (3 changes in 100,000 miles at a cost of about $70 each time for the oil). The purchase price of $60,865.00/ divided by 100,000 miles = 61¢/mile. Add the battery charging cost, and you get 67¢/mile.
So, the Ford Transit E-Van has a lifecycle cost to the owner that is at least 30% LESS than for the Mercedes Sprinter, which is currently the only diesel van available in the US. And I didn't even count the $7,500 tax incentive for the Ford E-van.
The issue of "what will it cost to replace the battery when it wears out?" is irrelevant to Commercial delivery service. By the time either van has racked up 100,000 miles, the original owners will be replacing them, so they don't have to worry about the battery replacement. Commercial owners only care about "what will this vehicle cost to operate, will it get the job done, will it be reliable, and will I be able to get it serviced?".
As for reliability and service: Electric vehicles need 40% less maintenance than gas or diesel vehicles. There are probably 10 times more Ford dealerships in North America than there are Mercedes-Benz dealers. So which delivery van do you think a company like Fed Ex, DHL, or Amazon is going to pick?
When accelerating it is important to keep the needle in the power meter around 50. The consumption is much higher when the needle is around 100. So maybe the city consumption in the video was higher because the driver has a more aggressive driving style.
stupid question: how high a water level on a flooded road could it get through (slowly)? What happened if the water got too deep?
"Turn around, don't drown."
These things are as water resistant as a petrol-powered car, for what its worth.
@@EVPulse just have a look at that scary UA-cam in Saudi Arabia: ua-cam.com/video/hj00vqpN3PU/v-deo.html
I'm just going to say it. That door to access the back looks tiny!
Boys, range range range!
Your video is of a nice driving vehicle that is useless I commercial usage.
You might want to try with a long range EV like a Blazer or Lyriq an experiment for how long it takes to drive from say Bangor Maine to Denver Co to Disney World. Vs fly the same route on the same days. And various costs involved . Can the EV be faster or cheaper? And better as the holiday is about enjoying the journey and seeing where you go instead of flying and seeing lineups and angry people, delays and luggage that doesn't arrive. Which has better food and who arrives happier. Is it better to fly 2 kids and 2 adults or drive 2 kids and 2 adults. Pick an EV with good range and self driving and might be used and paid for by not paying for airline tickets etc... Maybe try 1st class and Airport Lounges instead of Sardine class and terminal seating.
Honestly, it does not seem any less powerful than a 2.2L Duratorq or 2.0L new AdBlue Diesel in Europe. The previous 2.4L MK6 was a powerful engine. But even with the highest bhp spec and 2.2L engine, my van is struggling if there is any grade and I am nowhere near full load capacity. I pretty much have to keep RPM in the turbo sweet-spot range, or I will decelerate. So the performance is fine I think.
Range, I mean, as you said, delivery vehicle. I do 600-800 miles of driving in one tank. Maybe one day we'll get an EV like that. Or a hybrid. I hope.
odd thing here is I just retired from being a fleet manager at a shop that was switching from Chevy to Ford as I was walking out the door 3 years ago. When I started there 25 years ago, we had a fleet of Chevy Astro vans. They were small but you couldn't kill them. When those were no longer in production, we went to Chevy Express. Bigger van but hardly any major difference in fuel economy. (1-2 MPG mixed driving) Chevy stopped making the AWD and Ford offered it so that was the reason to change. Again, hardly any change in fuel economy, although the GVW was up quite a bit. They still have a mix of vehicles from the smallest Transit to the high top versions, and even a few Mercedes Metris vans. This would be an almost perfect fit for an EV fleet, with under 100 miles a day and charging at night, although I can hear the moaning / groaning from here because they all take the vans home at night. IOW, how to work out charging at home by employees.... especially the ones who don't own a home.
Employees taking home the van is a concern, and Ford's fleet software accounts for that. The manager can generate a report at the end of the month and then reimburse the employee. Now if they don't have the ability to charge at home, that is a problem (for sure).
@@EVPulse .... yes, Amazon or the USPS would expect night charging at their shop, and so would small business where we're talking about the owner parking in his own driveway, but I doubt there's software developed to keep an eye on things like, "hey boss... I had to stop along the pike and charge for a half hour" which really means a paid coffee break.
@@rupe53 maybe, maybe not. the fleet management software that ford uses tracks location, time, charging costs, maintenance, and the ilk. it's pretty robust for keeping track of what people are doing and when they're doing it.
not a solution for everyone, but we talked to some fleet operators who are legit excited to try it out.
As an example I use my Nissan Leaf for food delivery. I don't have a charger for my older apartment. So I have to charge it at community chargers. Most of the time that works surprisingly well. Occasionally there are problems getting a charger. They can be busy.
I expect that a person who couldn't charge at home, would leave the vehicle at work to charge and take transit home.
@@jimthain8777 ... I hate to keep blowing holes in the system. but even though our area does have some public transit, the transit system is limited to the main drag in towns along the valley, which means (in theory) you could take a bus or train the next 20 miles and be closer to home. The shortcoming is this valley is 10 miles wide and public transit is limited hours.... and sometimes canceled in bad weather. This is just part of the reason people will continue to buy ICE vehicles instead of EVs.
All vehicles are less efficient in the city compared to highways, that is because your acceleration drain is far higher than your regen. Living in a valley would make this van unusable, you'd could remove 20-40 miles of range from climbing, it takes a lot of energy to carry heavy weights up hill and your regen back down the hill is never going to be enough to replace it.