Vauxhall Vivaro-e electric van: specs, prices and photos

Vauxhall has announced pricing and opened order books for its Vivaro-e mid-size electric van, sister model to the recently announced Citroen Dispatch Electric and Peugeot e-Expert.

It'll start at £27,723 before VAT, but after the government's £8,000 plug-in van grant has been deducted. First customer deliveries will take place in October. The Vivaro-e is being sold with a choice of two body variants and lengths and in two trim levels, Dynamic and Elite.

Two battery sizes – 50 and 75kWh – offer driving ranges of 144 and 205 miles respectively, while carrying half the van's maximum payload of up to 1,226kg, which is 130kg less than the maximum payload of a diesel-engined Vivaro. The Vivaro-e is also rated for towing trailers of up to 1,000kg.

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Battery, electric motor range and charging

The Vivaro-e was designed to house the same electric powertrain that we’ve driven in the Peugeot e-208 and Vauxhall Corsa-e, which means an electric motor offering 134bhp and 260Nm of torque. In the Vivaro-e, that delivers a top speed of 81mph.

Charging speeds peak at 100kW, which will give you a 20-80% top-up from a 150kW DC rapid charger in around 30 minutes for the 50kWh model and 45 minutes for the 75kWh variant.

A standard 7.4kW wallbox will deliver a full charge in under eight hours for the smaller battery or 11 hours for the longer-range variant. An optional 11kW on-board charger can reduce those times to under six and eight hours respectively for the short and long-range Vivaro-e, but you will need three-phase electrics to have an 11kW charger installed.

All the cables necessary for charging at a three-pin domestic socket and Type 2 AC chargers (which include home wallboxes and most public chargers) are included, while DC rapid chargers always have a CCS cable that will fit the Vivaro-e’s socket tethered to the station itself.

Payload, body variants and trim levels

Vauxhall is offering the Vivaro-e as a panel van or double-cab, with both variants coming in at 1.9 metres tall, allowing access to most height-restricted car parks. The shorter variant measures 4.96 metres in length, while the longer variant is stretched to 5.3 metres.

The panel van has a maximum payload of 1,226kg and can also tow a trailer of up to 1,000kg. On the Elite trim level, a ‘FlexCargo’ load-through system on the passenger side allows for the load bay to be extended by an additional 1.2 metres, which results in a maximum load bay length of 3.67 metres for the shorter L1H1 van, while the longer L2H1 will carry items up to 4.02 metres. Maximum total cargo capacities are 5.8 and 6.6 cubic metres (including the FlexCargo area).

Entry-level Dynamic trim features hill-start assistance, dual airbags, a full-height steel bulkhead, a six-way adjustable driver's seat, a 3.5-inch digital instrument cluster, cruise control, a speed limiter, a seven-inch colour touchscreen infotainment system, electric windows and mirrors, front foglights, rear parking sensors, rain-sensitive wipers and 16-inch steel wheels.

Upgrading to Elite gets you the aforementioned FlexCargo load-through bulkhead, a fold-flat centre-seat backrest providing a flat work surface, sat nav, a head-up display, a panoramic rear-view camera, body-coloured front and rear bumpers, LED daytime running lights, front and rear parking sensors, 17-inch alloy wheels, power-folding door mirrors and two-coat metallic paint.

This trim level also comes with several driver-assistance safety systems, such as lane-departure warning, speed-sign recognition with intelligent speed adaptation, blind-spot alerts, semi-adaptive cruise control, forward collision alert with automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection

A smaller electric Vauxhall van – the Vauxhall Combo-e – will be the next full electric commercial vehicle from the brand; it's set to arrive in 2021.