In this article…
Understand exactly how electric van payloads differ from their fossil fuel counterparts.
With van driving comes the rare but important concern of payloads. Everyday transport may not stretch your van’s payload, but when you do get a task that is seriously heavy, your knowledge of your van’s capabilities comes into the fore.
Today, vans are changing like never before with the advent of EV technology. Electric vans are becoming more available and prominent on the roads, and models such as the Ford e-Transit and Toyota Proace City Electric have been lauded for managing to sustain the quality and life of their petrol-powered counterparts. But with this switch to electric power, how does this affect the payload?
To give you a full scope of how payload change should you go for an electric van lease, this article explains exactly what changes, how it affects the range and answering once and for all if electric vans mean a lower payload.
How Do Electric Van Payloads Differ From Fossil Fuel Vans?
Normally, a van payload is the Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) minus the unladen weight. The former is the maximum possible weight that the van can take without sustaining damage (which is limited to 3,500kg before it is considered a HGV vehicle), while the latter is the base weight of the van without carrying anything. Both of these pieces of information are located in the vehicle handbook.
When it comes to electric vans, generally the weight of the electric batteries means that they weigh more. Powering a vehicle up to 3.5-tonnes for potentially hundreds of miles at a time takes a huge, heavy battery pack, so this means that they might carry less weight.
However, electric vans do get past this flaw through a newly-created loophole. Van makers avoid increasing the GVM limit over 3,500kg because it is then considered a HGV and legally requires more training on the part of the driver. However, in 2018, the government increased the GVM threshold for electric vans up to 4,250kg, so they are able to compete with their diesel counterparts. This means that the payload is equal, if not greater, than most fossil fuel vans.
If you want to benefit from the same experience of a diesel van with extremely affordable running costs, cars2buy is the UK’s home for trusted electric van lease offers online, and have thousands of quality lease deals ready for you to search through. We parse through every deal in the country to find the very best deals out there, and allow you to filter by model, contract length, mileage and deposit fee to find the electric van lease that suits you. Best still, if you don’t wish to pay the lump sum at the start of the contract and get into regular monthly payments straight away, we have hundreds of zero-deposit electric van leases so that you don’t have to pay a large amount all at once. cars2buy makes finding the right van lease offer a walk in the park, and can be a great starting point to set off on your van business without the long-term responsibility of vehicle ownership. Browse our collection today, and your journey towards making that a reality is much easier.