Practical Proace City Electric shows it has a fun side

The Toyota Proace City Electric is a great package for van operators: a small electric van, with a cargo area of up to 3.3 cu. m3 and a useful battery electric range of 161 miles. Like the larger Proace Electric, it is built in conjunction with the Stellantis small electric vans from Citroen, Peugeot and Vauxhall, and gives Toyota another string to its bow in the electric van marketplace.

Model range, specification and equipment

SWB and LWB panel van versions are offered. The shorter wheelbase models have an 800kg payload, while longwheelbase models have a 750kg payload, but come with a larger loading area. Both versions feature the same 50kWh battery, with a WLTP range of 168 miles.

In SWB or LWB versions, the City is offered only in Icon spec. It does offer plenty of kit, including two sliding side doors, a reversing camera, smartphone integration for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, front parking sensors, a reversing camera, DAB, two USB’s, air-con and cruise control.

The 50kWh battery uses a 100kW electric motor, putting out the equivalent of 136bhp. It gives you top speed of 80 mph, but it’s the instant torque that’s most impressive, making forward progress smooth and silent.

Fast charging as standard means that City Electric tops up the battery from 0-80 per cent in just 30 minutes from a 100kW rapid charger. That can be expensive, so do your charging at home, where using a 7kW charger, like our own Rolec Smart Charger, charging the 50kWh battery from 0-100 per cent will take 7.5 hours. Toyota also offers the option to upgrade from 7kW Type 2 charging capability to 11kW, so a home charge can take as little as 4.5 hours.

So who are the rivals? Its siblings Peugeot, Vauxhall and Citroen have their own versions of the City Electric, and

Renault’s new Kangoo E-Tech, MercedesBenz eCitan and Nissan’s electric Townstar are also rivals, as is the Maxus eDeliver 3. All are worth a look but the City Electric has got a touch of something special about it. Our Proace City Electric Icon L1 50kW model has a car-like feel to its interior, finished in nicely textured plastics, with the grey seat fabric looking and feeling hard wearing.

My test van featured the Toyota Smart Cargo bulkhead with a hatch, allowing a longer load length to fit into the cargo area and into the front rear left passenger footwell – big enough, as I found, to carry two 3m lengths of wood. There’s also under-passenger seat storage, large enough for a small bag, two decent door pockets, storage between the front seats, twin drinks holders on the dash top and space lower down for odds and ends.

The only negative is that the centre front seat doesn’t offer much legroom, though the twin sliding side doors and 180° opening rear doors make getting in and out easy.

City Electric drives like a small electric family car. Steering is light and the auto box, located just to the left of the driver, is easy to operate. Here you can select from Park, Reverse, Neutral or Drive with another setting, ‘B’, that adds two levels of regenerative braking to the equation. There also three drive modes: Eco, which slows everything down and turns of the heating; Normal, in which we drove all week; and Power, useful if your van is heavily laden.

In Power mode, you get the van’s full 134bhp and the most fun, with quick acceleration from a standing start. The downside is that it reduces the range. The 108bhp you get with Normal mode is the level we used, primarily because it was cold. This gives you a good amount of throttle response. Selecting ‘B’ mode in the gear selector puts some energy back into the battery when coasting. It’s not really noticeable and certainly doesn’t offer anything strong enough to allow for single-pedal driving.

On the motorway, City Electric drives nicely. The cabin is quiet thanks in part to the full steel bulkhead, and the seats offer a firm, supportive ride. The driver’s view is good and all of the switches and buttons fall easily to hand.

The Icon comes with cruise control, which in turn aids battery range. The City Electric also does a good job of masking the battery weight under the floor plan, making it a fun small van to drive, especially in town.

Range

Once I had charged the City Electric fully at home on my Rolec charger the range was up to 161 miles in Eco and 151 miles in Normal. Some local journeys saw us achieve the holy grail of a 1:1 ratio of distance travelled to range used. As with all EVs, though, the range falls at over 65 mph or in low temperatures. We took a 50-mile motorway spin when it was just 3 deg C, and used up 68 miles of range.

Pros

Excellent payload, great to drive, top-notch cabin, on-trend tech and if driven carefully, expect a range of 130 miles. As with the firm’s passenger cars, the

Proace City Electric is covered by Toyota’s 10-year service warranty, which should bring added peace of mind to business users tempted to make the switch to electric. It’s worth noting that its Stellantis competitors are not as generous with their warranties.

Cons

The Proace City Electric Icon comes supplied with a higher spec than the Stellantis versions, which makes is a little more expensive. Like all EVs, be aware that very cold weather and a heavy right foot will affect your vehicle’s range.

If you drive the length and breadth of the UK, any electric van is not going to be for you. The range is too small and at motorway speeds, the battery drains far faster.

However, if your van use is local, even regional, then the Proace City Electric could be a solution. An electric van is plainly cleaner, you don’t pay VED and EVs are currently Congestion Charge exempt. And we haven’t even mentioned the fuel savings you’ll achieve in an electric van, which will typically cut your monthly expenditure on diesel by 75 per cent.

Furthermore, the Proace City Electric offers a competitive payload, comes complete with the latest tech and safety features and offers the reassurance of Toyota’s 10-year service warranty.

A great van to drive, good range if you are focused on short-run urban deliveries and gives you the ecocredentials you may be looking for. Will also save money in the long run in the charging v petrol/ diesel debate.

Mercedes has massively improved the battery range of its eVito, making it far more attractive prospect. Andrew Walker got to grips with one recently...

The upgraded eVito looks and feels the same as a diesel model, except that it’s powered by an 114bhp 85kW electric motor offering 300Nm of torque. There is a 66kWh battery with a WLTP range of 162 miles – up from the 93 miles of its predecessor – with AC charging to 11kW and DC to 80kW both standard.

Model range and sizes

We were testing the PREMIUM eVito. It costs from £46,900, though a cheaper PROGESSIVE is also available. eVito comes in two lengths, L2 or L3, with the smaller model offering 6.0 m3 cargo volume, the larger one 6.6 m3

Specs and safety eVito PROGRESSIVE offers colour-coded bumpers, full wheel covers, front fog lights, Headlight Assist, a 75mph speed limiter, Audio 30, lumbar support and electrically foldable mirrors. PREMIUM adds Hyacinth red metallic paint, a spare wheel with jack and a leather steering wheel, PARKTRONIC, reversing camera, hate insulting glass, TEMPMATIC semi auto air-con and cruise control.

From the outside it looks like a standard Vito and you’d be hard-pressed to know it’s electric unless you spot the discreet eVito and eLECTRIC badging.

Inside you’ll find the updated Vito interior, which includes two USBs and a heated front driver seat. There’s a threeseat configuration up front, with some top-of-the-dash storage, a decent glove box and two handy deep door pockets.

The ignition is on the left of the steering column, with the gear lever on the right, meaning the headlight and wipers are both on the right stalk. Cue changing into neutral a lot when it rains!

Power steering is standard and the wheel is both rake and reach adjustable. The driver’s seat is flexible and easy to get comfortable in.

In the centre of the dash and higher up than in some vans are the Audio 30 infotainment system and heating controls. The infotainment screen is slightly awkward to reach for the driver, as are the USB inputs on the left of the dash. For a left-hand driven Vito this location would make perfect sense, but not so for UK right-hand-drive versions.

The front windows are electric and keeping the cabin quiet is a full width bulkhead.

The quality is top-notch but it’s not as practical a cab as some competitors.