LEVC delays new electric van
The London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) is postponing the launch of its planned new electric delivery van. The new vehicle should have come out at the end of 2019, but will only be “ready for the market at the beginning of the 2020s”. LEVC already published a first photo of the EV in May 2018.
The delay comes in the context of a global reorientation of LEVC’s commercial vehicle strategy in close cooperation with the Chinese parent company Geely New Energy Commercial Vehicles (GCV). Chris Gubbey, CEO of LEVC said that “the creation of a new global strategy focused entirely on electric commercial vehicles makes strategic sense” before pointing out decreases in cost of development and production as well as a wider choice for clients.
A smaller vehicle, the LEVC taxi, is increasingly replacing London’s black cabs. Moreover, it has made it to other markets such as Germany and Scandinavia as well as France.
Similar to this, the planned electric van was to combine an electric drive with a small combustion engine as a range extender. It was not necessarily intended for the last mile. Instead the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC), previously known as LTC, sees their electric van providing “the link between out of town distribution centres and city destinations”. In other words, deliveries around the 100 mile threshold. But this is all water under the bridge. Only the new strategy will reveal exactly how and, above all, when it will continue with commercial electric vehicles under the LEVC/GCV banner.
0 Comments