Small Vans Become Extinct in the US

[patfromigh]

The small van has gone the way of the sedan in our market. There will be no more small vans offered in the US market after 2023. Ram trucks discontinued the ProMaster City at the end of 2022, Mercedes announced their Metris will exit our market, and Ford previously said the same thing about the Transit Connect.

Everywhere else the small van (small to mid-size LCV) business is booming. Stellantis recently announced a new agreement with Koc Holding to build a new line of LCVs and passenger vehicles for all the Stellantis brands at the Tofas joint venture facility in Turkey. Until now Tofas was only involved with Fiat. The changeover will occur in July and the legacy Fiat Doblo will be discontinued. The Doblo is what the Ram ProMaster City was based on.

In Latin America the Fiat based Ram ProMaster Rapid is a huge success. It uses the same platform as the Fiat Strada/Ram 700 pickup trucks.

Market analysts are saying fleets are looking to battery electric large vans instead of small vans for fuel efficiency.

 

[JeepBen]

I think this is a big mistake. Small businesses don't have the room or the money to invest and install chargers for electric delivery and service vehicles.
Many of these types of businesses are in store fronts that are rented. They don't really have their own parking lot. Are the building owners going to allow chargers to be installed? That would mean having to cut into the parking lot to run electricity from the buildings to the charger poles. Think small businesses want to pay for that?