Our cars: Citroen e-Dispatch

Loaded

Filling e-Dispatch with kit (and son) meant a small drop in overall range, but nothing drastic

Citroen e-Dispatch

FINALREPORT Our man weighs up the penalties of carrying a full load

Practicality

Cargo volume/payload 5.3 cubic metres/1,063kg

Running costs

Official range/tax 190 miles/£0

Dean Gibson

Dean _ Gibson@autovia.co.uk @DeanGbsn

WHEN people find out that you drive an electric van (often when they want to berate you for blocking a public EV chargepoint with what they presume is a smelly diesel), one of the first questions that’ s often asked is how a heavy payload affects the van ’ s range. Having mostly driven our Citroen e-Dispatch empty, I thought it high time we loaded it up before it headed off into the sunset, just to see what effect a full cargo area has.

For this highly unscientific project, I raided my garage for anything that would add some weight. Mountain bikes aren ’t really that heavy, but it’ s easy to double your payload with two on board, and I had a couple of pretty weighty toolboxes and toolkits, too. Some spare paving slabs came in handy (finally), while assorted pots of paint and gardening ephemera helped to fill the 5.8-cubic metre cargo bay. For good measure, I also borrowed my son to add a few additional kilos.

With everything tied down and child buckled up, a full charge of the 75kWh battery and a zeroed trip computer, I spent a week burning through the claimed range of 180 miles. I didn ’t employ any eco-driving tricks and kept the e-Dispatch in the Normal drive mode, just as I have for most of my time with the van. There are Eco and Power modes to choose from, but they demand changes to your driving style that make them seem unnecessary, especially when the e-Dispatch defaults to the Normal setting every time you turn it on.

With three quarters of a charge depleted and 150 miles covered, the result was 2.5 miles per kWh, just 0.3mi/kWh less than a best of 2.8mi/kWh that I’ ve achieved with an empty load bay. That’ s about a 10 per cent loss of efficiency, so expect a loss of around 20 miles from the van ’ s official range if you ’ re carrying a lot of weight on board.

One factor that does contribute to improved efficiency is the ‘B’ mode for the drive system. This has the same effect as selecting a lower gear in a manual car, and ploughs energy back into the battery when coasting. It soon becomes second nature to use around town, but it only works when there ’ s spare capacity in the battery.

If you select ‘B’ mode with a full charge, the van coasts like it’ s in neutral, rather than slowing, and efficiency when unladen only really maxes out at around 2.4mi/kWh. As a result, I’ ve taken to leaving the van partially discharged at all times just to take advantage of the energy recuperation that’ s on offer. It makes urban driving easier because you ’ re not using the brakes as often, and it’ s nice to see the van ’ s range add a couple of miles on those occasions where it’ s used more frequently.

As already mentioned, our time with the Citroen e-Dispatch has come to an end, but after six months with it, it’ s proved to be a pretty convincing electric van. The 75kWh battery is the one we ’d go for just for the extra peace of mind it provides when

compared with the 50kWh pack that’ s also on offer, while the sheer simplicity of turning the van on, selecting Drive and heading off in silence means this is a stress-free work vehicle. Any gripes we have with the e-Dispatch are shared with the diesel version. It’ s not the biggest medium-sized van available – the Ford Transit Custom and Renault Trafic offer more cargo and passenger space, for example – while a lack of wide-angle door mirrors mean that blind spots are a bit of an issue, too. Our van featured blind-spot detection at least, but it didn ’t always activate. Connectivity is a big focus for vans at the moment, but while I downloaded the MyCitroen app to my smartphone and paired it with the e-Dispatch, I’ ve hardly used it recently. The initial novelty of looking at monthly energy use and the distances I’ ve covered with each trip has worn off, so it’ s now more of an annoyance when it asks if I want the app to collect driving data. I might fire it up to watch the van ’ s departing journey back to Citroen, though. “One factor that does improve efficiency is the ‘B’ mode for the van’s drive system”