Advice on business van purchase

sp2013

Hi All,
Need advice on purchasing a new small van please.

I have a small business in zone 1 London where our 2 drivers between 7am-8pm pick up/drop off items to customers in a 3mile radius. Between 2-5 pickup drop offs per hour. So a lot of start stops.

We have a Citroen Berlingo and is a diesel and currently adding AdBlue. We've had numerous engine issues because we don't take the van on a long distance drive (advised 45mins run at fast pace every 2wks) to clear out the particulate filter and this keeps getting blocked up and never getting hot enough to burn off the material and regenerate itself.

So we're looking for ideally a hybrid van (similar size to a Berlingo)- any suggestions please?
Unfortunately we can't get an electric as we don't have a charging point base to charge overnight. And driver continuously needs the car throughout the day.

Thanks

daveyjp

In London the obvious is the LEVC van based on the black cab.

sp2013

daveyjp said:

In London the obvious is the LEVC van based on the black cab.

I believe these are fully electric, so will need charging. These look nice too.

daveyjp

They have a range extender petrol engine on board.

Herzlos

Petrol Berlingo car and fold the rear seats down? The floor will be slightly higher but the load space will otherwise be the same.

I think there's a few Ford hybrid vans if you want to go down that route instead of full electric. What range do you need if you're covering a 3 mile radius in zone 1 London? The Berlingo van will do 150 miles which is 50x 3-mile journeys.

Goudy

By the sounds of it you need a HEV or what is known as a self charging hybrid as you can't plug in a PHEV or full EV so that limits your choice to one HEV really.

How big does the van need to be?
What weight are you carrying?

Toyota make the Corolla Commercial Hybrid.
Basically a normal Toyota Corolla Sports Touring (estate) with blacked out rear windows, a load area instead of the back seats and a partition between the front and back.

It's obviously smaller than a Berlingo, but it does have some advantages if it's big enough.
It's a Hybrid and a Toyota one at that.

It's a petrol hybrid, so no diesel and it's relatively cheap compared to full EV vans, they start around £24,000 + Vat.
(The LVEC Vn5 mentioned above are between £53,000 and £59,000 without any cost options like sliding side doors) 

They are notoriously reliable and can cover a lot of miles without much trouble.

With every service you extend the warranty by another 12 months, up to 100,000 miles or ten years.

There are some other Toyota perks as well, like free roadside assistance for 5 years, again that is extendable with a Toyota service. 

Toyota Corolla Commercial | Hybrid Electric Van | Toyota UK

Mildly_Miffed

Why not a petrol Berlingo(/Partner/Combo/Doblo/ProAceCity - all the same thing bar the badge)?

If a pure-electric's no use because of lack of charging, a plugin hybrid is not going to get plugged in and charged.

Non-plugin-hybrids are the worst of both worlds. You're lugging the weight of a battery, without much range or performance - AND all the energy has to come from fossil fuel anyway.