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CALL FOR REALISTIC RANGE DATA FOR ELECTRIC VANS


according to the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP).


R The organisation said the


performance of the vans on the road often fell short of official WLTP figures. AFP chair Paul Hollick said the degrees of variation seen in operation across different conditions meant the official range was an inadequate guide to actual performance. He said: “We now have a number of fleets who have operated electric vans for a reasonable period of time and crucially, through the recent winter. The differences in range being reported on


ange data supplied for new electric vans should better reflect real-world performance,


some models are a cause for concern. “The weather factor is especially proving to be much greater than originally thought with some of our members seeing a drop in range approaching 50% during the coldest winter days on occasions when there was no opportunity to precondition the battery. These are not the relatively minor variations in range that might be reasonably expected.”


Hollick said the negative impact of payload was greater than many operators had anticipated and that commonly-used fittings, such as roof racks and ladder loaders, also affected range. He said: “We have members who


of 550 vehicles. Airmax Remote’s Response is a dedicated system for blue-light fleets, designed to deliver mission-critical data in real time.


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battery life monitoring, ensuring that life-saving equipment on the vehicles is always ready to use. There is also real- time monitoring of diagnostic faults to help keep downtime to a minimum. St John Ambulance national fleet manager Phil Howard said: “Our vehicles often respond to difficult incidents, in which consistent performance is essential to support our life-saving work.


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in data accuracy compared with the general marketplace, which can be monitored remotely without the need to visit a vehicle. “In addition, remote monitoring of the vital battery-powered life-saving technology operated from our fleet of emergency vehicles ensures that we have no outages and critical equipment is maintained to a high standard.” Airmax Remote managing director Richard Perham said: “Airmax Remote has more than 20 years of experience working with the emergency services, and the partnership with a blue-light emergency services provider with the stature of St John Ambulance is a massive endorsement of Airmax Remote’s Response solution, which is fast becoming the de-facto standard for blue-light fleets.”


feel as though they have been misled over the potential range of some electric vans they have bought and have generally lost confidence in them. “There is a feeling that the WLTP figures being produced are often almost useless as an indicator of actual range and something much closer to real world figures is required.” Hollick claimed the issue was more complex for electric vans than for electric cars. He said: “The weights company cars


carry vary but by not by too much ….. so shifts in the distance that can be covered are much less dramatic. “This is not the situation for vans and ideally, we’d be looking for


different official tests for warm and cold weather conditions, with different payloads [and] towing [weights]. It’s a question of providing data that allows fleet operators to make an informed choice.” Hollick said the AFP remained strong advocates of electric vans but stressed its members were experiencing a number of difficult issues as they underwent the process of adoption. He said: “It’s clear that the electrification of the van parc is turning out to be much more demanding than has so far been the case for cars, with range, charging and payload very much proving [to be] stumbling blocks for many.”


www.whatvan.co.uk


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