Opel Vivaro e - a compact van with a long range

Passenger cars badged with the letter "e" hardly surprise anyone any more. Plug-in hybrid passenger cars are also becoming more and more popular, but what about light commercial vehicles? Vehicles like the Opel Vivaro-e are still few and far between.

There are a handful of electric vans on the market. You could mention Nissan, which offers the e-NV200, and the Renault Kangoo, which I wrote about here It would seem that vehicles like these make the most sense, because in the city they can use bus lanes and bypass traffic jams. And they can park for free, too. Driving in bus lanes means more efficient deliveries; after all, the point is to arrive on time and make as many deliveries as possible during the working day. The fact that the vehicle is almost silent also gives it a big advantage when delivering goods at night to city centres, hospitals or sanatoriums, where quiet may be part of the therapy.

Vivaro-e design and interior

Visually, the Vivaro-e looks no different from the standard model. It also has the same load space, although its payload is slightly lower (from 925 to 1163 kg in the model described here, compared with 953-1424 kg in its combustion-engined counterpart). Its "zero-emission" status is announced by the letter "e" on the rear doors and an extra flap covering the charging sockets on the front left wheel arch. Interestingly, the fuel filler flap has been kept, but it is blanked off. If the owner wishes, the vehicle can be fitted with green number plates, which will tell the authorities and other road users from a distance about the privileges this vehicle enjoys.

There is no revolution inside either. The dials are slightly different, including one that is rather unusual. It shows how intensively you are using the heating and air conditioning. If you set one of these systems to "full blast", the car warns you by moving the needle into the red zone. Yes, as well as their many advantages, electric cars also have their drawbacks. When heating the interior, an EV cannot use heat from the engine; all the heat has to be generated separately, which of course reduces the energy available in the system and therefore the range.

Body versions, battery and range

The vehicle was developed as part of the alliance with Citroen and Peugeot. It comes in three body lengths, Compact 461 cm, Long 496 cm and Extra Long 531 cm, and two heights: 189.5 and 194.5 cm. There is a choice of body types: panel van, kombi and the passenger version, called Life. As "standard" you always get a lower centre of gravity and better stability, because the heavy batteries are placed in the lower part of the body.

The Opel Vivaro-e can be fitted with a 75 kWh or a 50 kWh battery, giving a real-world range of around 300 km. And that is a very good result. The electric motor delivers 100 kW (136 hp) and produces 260 Nm of torque right from the start. The same powertrain is used in the electric Corsa and in the Peugeot 208 and 2008. You will find my test of the Opel Corsa here

There are three driving modes to choose from: Eco, Normal and Power. Top speed is electronically limited to 130 km/h, as the engineers bore in mind that air resistance is a dangerous enemy of electric vehicles' range.

The ELAB project and the TCO of electric vans

Although the range of electric vans is still small, more and more companies are considering buying them. Proof of this is a project carried out by the Polish Alternative Fuels Association. Over 18 weeks, 6 vehicles covered 24,500 kilometres around Łódź as part of the "ELAB Clean Transport City" campaign. It was the largest pilot project in the e-mobility sector in Poland and the CEE region. The study made it possible to gather an extensive database from real-world use of electric and combustion vehicles, and addressed 6 key areas from the perspective of businesses planning to electrify their company fleets. The results of the pilot were used to compare the total cost of ownership (TCO) of electric and combustion vehicles, assess their environmental impact and analyse the challenges of switching a fleet to electric. The project also made it possible to determine the effect of payload weight on the range of zero-emission vehicles, define the stages of planning private charging infrastructure and assess the potential for rolling out charging stations integrated with street lighting.

15 organisations took part in the "ELAB" project, including DHL Parcel, H&M, IKEA, InPost, Rhenus Delivery Services, Veolia and the city of Łódź maintenance teams. Expert support for the project came from ARVAL, whose analyses were used to establish the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the vehicles tested.

The study showed that buying light commercial vehicles such as the Opel Vivaro-e can be more cost-effective than buying their conventional counterparts, even assuming that no financial support schemes for e-mobility are in place. The higher prices of EVs are offset by significantly lower costs for their owners during operation.