Mercedes Vito Vans put Through Their Paces

Jan 20 2012

When a business owner signs up for a car finance package, two of his main requirements are usually that the vehicle he buys should be reliable and economical.

Business owners will thus be glad to hear that during trials taking place in Germany 100 electric Mercedes Vito vans have now already done more than 400,000 miles collectively.

The trial is conducted by Mercedes’ parent company, Daimler and started during the autumn of 2010.  Since then the vans have been used both in Stuttgart and Berlin.

According to Mercedes the first stage of the trials has proved that the Vito E-Cell is particularly suited for inner-city routes.  The vans have been put to use as service vehicles, courier vehicles, internal transport within companies and customer service jobs.

The Stuttgart region was selected for a very good reason: it has much more pronounced differences in elevation within the city limits – as much as 350 metres – than the largely flat terrain of Berlin.  This gave test drivers an ideal opportunity to test the range and recuperation performance of the Vito E-Cell.

In both regions drivers gave largely positive feedback about the capabilities of the vehicle.  The biggest initial concern was that the range would prove insufficient for everyday use.  This fear was proved to be largely unsubstantiated.  The vehicles were able to travel at least 50 miles (80km) on a full battery charge, which was more than sufficient for most drivers.

An important indicator of range satisfaction, the charge level of the batteries, fluctuated between 25% and 95% most of the time.

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