On 29 July, a Fiat E-Scudo set the Guinness World Record for the greatest distance travelled by an electric van in a single charge: 311.18 miles.
It’s proof that plug-in light commercial vehicles (LCVs) are heading in the right direction, but it's not enough to convince fleets running large vans to make the leap from diesel. The range of bigger electric vans is particularly sensitive to payload and many businesses have scaled back their electrification plans until models with greater ranges and better able to handle heavy loads become available.
“Electric vans have always been a bit of a struggle, because there’s a question of whether the larger ones are actually capable of doing the job,” said Ben Edwards, consultant at Arval, the UK’s third-biggest vehicle leasing company.
“We already know that when a car says it will do 280 miles – but you’ve got five people in it and your boot’s full – your range is significantly less.
