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
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 😅😅😅
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.
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.
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)
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 ... 😋
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.
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...
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.
Question, Possible to maintain these vans yourself without going to the dealer? Over the air updates? Check Battery health? Brake Systems? General inspections?
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.......
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.
One question on charging. You mentioned the methodology for your test, stating you use a charger with at least as much rate as the vehicle can accept. Have you found any difference in how much more rate is beneficial? For instance you used a 350kw charger here, do you think the rate it can supply this Transit would be more than if you just used a ~120kw unit? I though I had heard no charger ever really reaches it's maximum output, so if you wanted to eek out as much as you could would you always try to find the highest output charger possible (hopefully not ticking off other customers in line)?
We talked directly with a Ford engineer and he said that there’d be no additional benefit in plugging into a charger that delivers more than the 115 kW. We would’ve used the 150 but we had a challenging charging day in regards to EA reliability.
@@yiamas07 at the U.S. average rate of 16.3 cents per kWh, it'd cost $11.08 to fill it. Which is where over 90% of the charging will occur. If you have to DCFC, which you'd never go from empty to full doing, you'd spend around $25.
@@EVPulse thanks 🙂 in the UK at the capped domestic rate of 34p per kwh, that's around £24 then...and a fair bit more if a public charger has to be used, 63p per kwh is £44. That's not very good for around a 100 mile range 😮
@@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.
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.
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
I live (and work) close to Vancouver BC. I deliver food in my Nissan Leaf. I'm pretty sure these vans would work well for companies like Amazon, UPS, 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.
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.
Here in South Florida it is not the cold, but the heat which presents a challenge. I did not realize how much juice the a/c pulls until the temperature dropped to the 70’s and I did not need a/c. I am getting 35% more range with the a/c off. My guess is the heating system in your E-Transit is comparable to an A/c in terms of power usage, so if you would have kept it turned off your range would have increased significantly
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.
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
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!
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.
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?
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)
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
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 ?!?!?
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.
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.
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
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.
It’s worth giving your employees a paid lunch break under condition they charge the vehicle during their break. This extends your range or doubles it for the day.
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?
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.
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.
Sorry guys, but I had an electric van in 2013 with a pathetic 100 mile range and it wasn't enough then and a Transit with a 100 mile range isn't enough now. The only technology that has moved forward in 10 years is faster charging speed. The new Transit is a brilliant van and very comfortable but it's enormous achiles heel is its pathetic range and lack of any option from Ford for a long range battery pack... So as a civilisation we have failed yet again to produce a commercial vehicle that is a practical, useful and affordable option to the stinking environmental shit boxes with ICE engines
My e-transit covers 100% of my daily work load. Im a service based company in my city, and this truck is saving me tons in fuel savings and maintenance. Ford did the homework to target this specific group of bussinesses, and thousands are being sold to end of point delivery companies as well…unfortunately lots of other people are at a loss and need to wait for something with longer range to come out.
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
@@AutoEsoterica 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.
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.
The higher energy consumption for city driving, as compared to highway, make perfect sense to me for a heavily loaded van and it's what I've experienced with our electric-converted E450 cube truck. A heavily loaded vehicle takes dramatically more energy/power to accelerate from a stop and though a portion of this can be recovered through regen it's always a losing equation. On the highway the heavy load will hurt during acceleration and add a bit of rolling resistance but once you reach cruising speed your energy consumption is almost the same as when the truck is empty: say 70% wind resistance + 25% rolling resistance + 5%misc. Wind resistance doesn't change with mass so a loaded truck can get pretty similar range/efficiency on the highway as compared to unladen. This is NOT true for city driving where you are frequently having to accelerate all the truck+cargo mass. My take, it's not the heater, it's the physics. My farm switched to an electric truck 2 yrs ago with conversion to electric of an E-450 with 16' cube box. It is our farm's only delivery vehicle and with GVWR of 6300kg we can haul as much as 3000kg of cargo. Loading definitely has a bigger impact on city driving than on highway. I love the truck and the shift to using an electric hauler and part of the fun is the way it makes you think about energy use, efficiency and all the related topics. Thanks for taking the time to produce videos like this.
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.
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
The statements "much cheaper per mile for fuel" are ENTIRELY dependent on one's actual local cost for gas/diesel and electricity. In Southern California, Los Angeles County in particular, in December of 2024 the lowest tier for electricity is $0.31/kWh, while diesel is $5.5/gal. So... (1) EV Pulse highway test at 1.4 kWh/mile would cost 0.31/1.4 = $0.22/mile for the E-Transit. (2) Our 8,600 lb RV on Transit 350 chassis with Ford's 3.2 L 5-cyl diesel gets around 22 MPG on the highway, so cost per mile is $5.50/22 = $0.25/mile for diesel Transit. The TH-cam authors were very careless in their offhand statements that "The E Transit will dramatically cut their fuel costs." Next time, gentlemen, do the math for a few real-world scenarios before making blanket statements that mislead people.
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.
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”.
Need more range or payload? We check out the new Harbinger van at CES 2023 th-cam.com/video/2QH5eg6r274/w-d-xo.html
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
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 ?
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.
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.
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 TH-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.
Amazon have gone electric
Sorry, I did not stick around till the end. In fact after 1:40 I decided to not stick around for the beginning.
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?
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 😅😅😅
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.
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.
How many miles did it take to get to 2%
every flower shop should have one.
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.
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 ... 😋
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.
Was 0-60 loaded or empty? Does this have a Heat Pump?
Loaded. No heat pump.
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...
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.
EXCELLENT VIDEO!!!! It may give option for a DYI class B camper on the cheap!!!
Question, Possible to maintain these vans yourself without going to the dealer? Over the air updates? Check Battery health? Brake Systems? General inspections?
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
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
😅
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.
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.
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
Hey great video boys 1st time viewer and loved it new subscriber 😁 see yous in the next video
Does come to a complete stop or do you have to use the brake for a complete stop?
Best I can tell, the actual thing in the title of the video that drew you into the video, occurs at 24:25
The charge time on that thing is *45x* longer than my current van.
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.
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.......
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.
One question on charging. You mentioned the methodology for your test, stating you use a charger with at least as much rate as the vehicle can accept. Have you found any difference in how much more rate is beneficial? For instance you used a 350kw charger here, do you think the rate it can supply this Transit would be more than if you just used a ~120kw unit? I though I had heard no charger ever really reaches it's maximum output, so if you wanted to eek out as much as you could would you always try to find the highest output charger possible (hopefully not ticking off other customers in line)?
We talked directly with a Ford engineer and he said that there’d be no additional benefit in plugging into a charger that delivers more than the 115 kW.
We would’ve used the 150 but we had a challenging charging day in regards to EA reliability.
@@EVPulse gotcha thanks, i guess i was just wondering if the advertised max rate is always achievable if the unit is operating.
@@EVPulse how much did that full charge cost?
@@yiamas07 at the U.S. average rate of 16.3 cents per kWh, it'd cost $11.08 to fill it. Which is where over 90% of the charging will occur. If you have to DCFC, which you'd never go from empty to full doing, you'd spend around $25.
@@EVPulse thanks 🙂 in the UK at the capped domestic rate of 34p per kwh, that's around £24 then...and a fair bit more if a public charger has to be used, 63p per kwh is £44.
That's not very good for around a 100 mile range 😮
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.
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.
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 TH-cam in Saudi Arabia: th-cam.com/video/hj00vqpN3PU/w-d-xo.html
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
10% less range can be attributed to driving style discrepencies...
What’s the short answer. Just bought one today. Thanks
So no deliveries in Canada from Dec to April?
I live (and work) close to Vancouver BC. I deliver food in my Nissan Leaf. I'm pretty sure these vans would work well for companies like Amazon, UPS, etc.
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 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.
Here in South Florida it is not the cold, but the heat which presents a challenge. I did not realize how much juice the a/c pulls until the temperature dropped to the 70’s and I did not need a/c. I am getting 35% more range with the a/c off. My guess is the heating system in your E-Transit is comparable to an A/c in terms of power usage, so if you would have kept it turned off your range would have increased significantly
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
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.
Great stuff!!!! Thank you for being as (normal) as possible!
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.
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
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!
Its 32F today here and that is warm. Cold day would be single digits to below 0F. Normal temp for Jan in my area of Wisconsin is 27F.
Might have really validated the figures if you had included some actual daily mileages from some local delivery companies.
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.
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
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.
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)
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
ER - Western Cornwall to London and back in a day, LWB hi-top Transit.
Dead easy in a diesel, but electrically impossible
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-
i think ill keep my 1085 toyta truck, it just keeps going, cost my 2000 bucks to buy. keeps going going goimg thanks
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 ?!?!?
95 miles is pathetic, I used to drive 500 miles per day when I drove vans years ago.......useless.
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.
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.
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
how many tons of coal does it take to charge it's battery?
A gajillion.
21.06: 88 mins for a 'quick' charge. Feel free to correct me if I've misinterpreted that.
My new 2023 leaf 40kw was getting 200plus Km around town( 250Kms on highway). Now in -15c my percent meter is also Kms remaining.
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?
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.
G'day, Sounds like a good van for people that dont go anywhere.
I bought a Lightning and it it a fantastic Truck 320 miles of range real world is about 275 but it charges fast and has a ton of power.
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
It’s worth giving your employees a paid lunch break under condition they charge the vehicle during their break. This extends your range or doubles it for the day.
It's worth giving your team employees a paid lunch break, end of. What kind of pyschotic working culture doesn't pay for a lunch break?!!
@@orionbetelgeuse1937 And it will take more kw to transport the over weight driver
Why did you not show us how much it cost to charge it?
Price varies widely. We used a DCFC but most of the time these will charge at a depot at a much cheaper rate.
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?
We have 1 for work here.in marin county CA installing solar. Limits our workable range but good over all.
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.
If ford would be smart they would adopt Tesla supercharger port and have access to supercharger
Seems fine for local deliveries, but definitely not ready for tradesman or service truck use outside of a very limited local area.
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.
very interesting thanks guys
Thanks for watching
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.
Sorry guys, but I had an electric van in 2013 with a pathetic 100 mile range and it wasn't enough then and a Transit with a 100 mile range isn't enough now. The only technology that has moved forward in 10 years is faster charging speed. The new Transit is a brilliant van and very comfortable but it's enormous achiles heel is its pathetic range and lack of any option from Ford for a long range battery pack... So as a civilisation we have failed yet again to produce a commercial vehicle that is a practical, useful and affordable option to the stinking environmental shit boxes with ICE engines
My e-transit covers 100% of my daily work load. Im a service based company in my city, and this truck is saving me tons in fuel savings and maintenance. Ford did the homework to target this specific group of bussinesses, and thousands are being sold to end of point delivery companies as well…unfortunately lots of other people are at a loss and need to wait for something with longer range to come out.
What about winter time? 9200 lbs holly shit 4 tons? Is it full of lead or gold?
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
@@AutoEsoterica 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.
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.
The heater being on definitely made street driving less efficient if you do the same tests again without temperature on you will see
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 higher energy consumption for city driving, as compared to highway, make perfect sense to me for a heavily loaded van and it's what I've experienced with our electric-converted E450 cube truck. A heavily loaded vehicle takes dramatically more energy/power to accelerate from a stop and though a portion of this can be recovered through regen it's always a losing equation. On the highway the heavy load will hurt during acceleration and add a bit of rolling resistance but once you reach cruising speed your energy consumption is almost the same as when the truck is empty: say 70% wind resistance + 25% rolling resistance + 5%misc. Wind resistance doesn't change with mass so a loaded truck can get pretty similar range/efficiency on the highway as compared to unladen. This is NOT true for city driving where you are frequently having to accelerate all the truck+cargo mass.
My take, it's not the heater, it's the physics.
My farm switched to an electric truck 2 yrs ago with conversion to electric of an E-450 with 16' cube box. It is our farm's only delivery vehicle and with GVWR of 6300kg we can haul as much as 3000kg of cargo. Loading definitely has a bigger impact on city driving than on highway. I love the truck and the shift to using an electric hauler and part of the fun is the way it makes you think about energy use, efficiency and all the related topics.
Thanks for taking the time to produce videos like this.
Thank you for taking the time to watch!
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.
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
I got a kick when at 8:58 your talking about the difference in the driving position of a Ram Promaster van, and one passes right by the window.
We we could say we planned it. Thanks for watching!
Happy to stand around in the Great Republic
The statements "much cheaper per mile for fuel" are ENTIRELY dependent on one's actual local cost for gas/diesel and electricity. In Southern California, Los Angeles County in particular, in December of 2024 the lowest tier for electricity is $0.31/kWh, while diesel is $5.5/gal. So...
(1) EV Pulse highway test at 1.4 kWh/mile would cost 0.31/1.4 = $0.22/mile for the E-Transit.
(2) Our 8,600 lb RV on Transit 350 chassis with Ford's 3.2 L 5-cyl diesel gets around 22 MPG on the highway, so cost per mile is $5.50/22 = $0.25/mile for diesel Transit.
The TH-cam authors were very careless in their offhand statements that "The E Transit will dramatically cut their fuel costs." Next time, gentlemen, do the math for a few real-world scenarios before making blanket statements that mislead people.
Maybe the city test took longer and the heater was on longer?
How about testing,full load -30deg in Northern Ontario or Northern Michigan
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.
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”.