Ford’s all-electric Transit is now being tested on European roads following the start of customer trials with a selection of major fleet operators ahead of the vehicle’s volume sales launch in spring 2022.
As previously reported by CiTTi, the trial sees 10 E-Transit prototypes being tested across a variety of intensive real-world operating scenarios in the postal, municipal and utilities, last-mile and grocery delivery sectors within Germany, Norway and the UK.
Among the trial partners are AWB waste disposal, Balfour Beatty, the City of Cologne municipal fleet, DHL Express in the UK, DPD, Norwegian Post, Ocado and Recover Nordic.
The trial fleet features a full range of E-Transit variants including van, double-cab-in-van and chassis cab derivatives with gross vehicle masses from 3.5 to 4.25 tonnes, and a variety of specialised vehicle conversions that reflect the different operating requirements that Transit vehicles need to support.
“We want to demonstrate that helping customers reduce their environmental impact can go hand-in-hand with improving their productivity,” said Dave Petts, market lead, urban electrified vans, Ford of Europe.
“Real-world mileage in customer hands helps us to show the business benefits that E-Transit can deliver, as well as providing valuable feedback on usage patterns and charging behaviour so that we can refine the operating experience.”
The trials mark the latest phase in Ford’s development of the new E-Transit, following a testing programme at Ford proving grounds and engineering facilities. Trials partners will operate the E-Transit prototypes over six- or 12-month periods.
A selection of the trial vehicles have been converted to help demonstrate the versatility of the E-Transit platform.
Examples of the conversions include refrigerated box body for grocery delivery, powered by 2.3kW ProPower Onboard system; dropside body for construction with light beacons and weight sensors; caged tipper for refuse removal; last-mile delivery box body with walkthrough bulkhead and rear air suspension; and last-mile delivery van with bonded internal racking, walkthrough bulkhead and front jump seat.
The E-Transit customer trials programme follows an earlier initiative featuring the Transit Custom Plug-In Hybrid, during which a cross-section of city-based customers covered over 240,000km (150,000 miles) and found they could operate in zero-emission mode for 75% of their mileage when in central London.
Further testing in Cologne, Germany helped demonstrate the benefit of geofencing technology, which automatically triggered zero-emissions mode in areas with particularly high air pollution to help improve local air quality in urban areas.
