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Electric vans: Best practice for driving

Date: Tuesday, August 29, 2023   |   Author: Ian Shaw

Coasting; you were told it was a no-no from the day you first stuck on L-plates, but coasting is the BEV’s hidden weapon. Most BEVs will indicate it on the instruments – usually a thin gap on the rev-counter style gauge between ‘power’ and ‘recharge’. Get used to keeping the needle in that gap with very careful right-foot dexterity. It’s a more efficient way to approach a roundabout than powering along and then lifting off for full regenerative braking. 

It takes practice and a lot of patience. It’s worth noting one specific vehicle here, not an LCV, but bizarrely the Porsche Taycan. It is one of the very few EVs that does not offer one-pedal driving, nor any aggressive regenerative braking. It offers true foot-off coasting and it’s quite an eye-opener when sampled as to just how far along a level road you can travel using no energy at all. Its regenerative braking actually happens via the brake pedal and, although the driver thinks they are braking, Porsche claims 80% of all braking is actually via regeneration, before the pad ever touches the disc. Porsche’s doctrine is that for a sports car it gives better braking feel between regeneration and actual friction braking, an area where most BEVs are somewhat jerky in response. 

So, how much do you need to change your driving style? In a word; totally.

If you can achieve a better mpg figure when unladen than your diesel van’s handbook states, that’s how you have to drive a BEV to even get 70% of the claimed range. It’s like being on a world-record economy drive all-day, every-day; you must cruise at 56mph with the trucks on the motorway and only accelerate at a rate to stay behind them off all the roundabouts on the ring road. Have the ‘regen’ set to maximum, but ease off very early and try to hit the coasting level from as soon as you see the roundabout or junction ahead.  Forget trying to achieve the official BEV’s range. For a start, the Worldwide Harmonised Light vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) that creates the figure is carried out in a laboratory at 23ºC (considered optimal for BEVs) and we know that the battery performance declines rapidly as it gets colder. 

Therefore, there are only a few days a year in the UK when you are even on the same page as the test data. Moreover, the acceleration phase of the test is equal to getting from 0-60mph in longer than 20 seconds and the average speed across the whole test is just 46.5kmh (29mph). So when everyone tells you their BEV’s range is poor, it’s understandable. It’s not the drivers’ fault, or the vehicle manufacturers’ – which maker would stick their neck out with a real-world figure? The test cycle is simply not fit for purpose, leaving drivers guessing or stranded.

Perhaps it’s a case of application. When manufacturers first created BEVs – without being forced to by governments – they had a very definite use in mind: city driving. In the early 1900s, the American Baker electric carriage had a range of over 50 miles, the UK’s fleet of milk floats ran fully laden out to 20 miles or more before return. Those operating parameters have now been stretched, without the technology, infrastructure or correct consultation to assume they can work for all. 

If you can operate your van locally at 100 miles per day or less, charge it overnight from 20% to 80%, don’t need to drive much on the motorway, don’t need huge payloads or tow a trailer, then go for it. Increased purchase price aside, it will cost you much less. Half the pence per mile of diesel, and much less in servicing whilst current strong residuals make leasing and PCPs attractive. Learn its characteristics, and it is actually fun to drive, quick off the mark when needed and might even be a good eco-PR exercise for your business.

Outside of those rigid parameters, it seems that you have a lot of thinking and a great deal of maths to do. The clock is ticking and makers are early-abandoning their diesel models – not to mention their loyal customers.

Assault on battery

Battery health is a big issue with EVs. The total number of discharge / recharge cycles determines its working life, but how you charge it has a big effect. Rapid charging the battery is much worse than charging it slowly, but there’s a time issue, of course. Charging at home is much cheaper too; public chargers can be up to twice the cost per unit, albeit much faster. A domestic wallbox charger (budget for £1000+) can supply 7.2kW (32 amps). For a nominal 75kW/h battery in a 3.0-tonne van, that’s over 10 hours. However, most BEVs allow you to limit the input to 16 amps, better for the battery but making 21 hours charging time from zero to 100%. However, the vehicle manufacturers say you should avoid running the battery down below 20% and not charge it to more than 80%. Not only does that mean you are operating with only 60% of the theoretical total range, but are actually increasing the number of charge cycles too. It takes longer to charge in the winter and of course at lower temperatures the battery provides much less range anyhow – as bad as 50% of that claimed. Manufacturers are already working on a solution to this, aiming to install battery change-over bays. Already operating under trial in some European countries with prototype cars, they resemble a carwash. You drive in, the battery is removed from beneath the vehicle, and a fully-charged one installed, all automated and taking a few minutes. You pay a subscription, in effect  leasing the batteries. Cost and timescale for the UK? TBC!