A year has passed since Fiat Professional introduced its E-Ducato prototype, the full electric BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) as part of the brand’s journey toward zero-emissions vehicles. Despite the COVID-19 (or Coronavirus) pandemic over the past few months, the development of the new electrified van offering has continued with the assistance of simulation tools and the Fiat Professional brand decided to unveil the production version this past week.
The production E-Ducato is the result of an extended series of measurements and tests, taking into account all the variables of usage by different types of clients, as well as dynamic, load, and environmental aspects. The brand-new electric vehicle will soon join the methane-driven Ducato Natural Power in the brand’s alternative propulsion systems offerings to the mass market.
The development of the E-Ducato included over one year of on-road measurements to analyze more than 28,000 connected vehicles. The measurements from a client’s perspective were taken by a dedicated team of professionals on vehicles with combustion engines running more than 50 million kilometers (or more than 31 million miles), to take into account all the variables of client usage, dynamics, load, and environmental aspects. The analyses were focused on mileage, model variability for any kind of mission, fuel expenditure, vehicle usage, and temperature. By adopting this approach, Fiat Professional aims to offer comprehensive electric mobility solutions.
In addition to a full line-up of versions, the E-Ducato also offers modular options for battery size, with ranges in a typical urban real delivery cycle from 200 km (about 124 miles) to over 330 km (or 250 miles) at standard environment conditions, depending on the battery pack, and a variety of charging configurations. It also comes with high-potential performance with speed limited to 100 km/h or 62 mph (for improved energy absorption, maximum output of 90 kW (121 horsepower), and maximum torque of 280 Nm (207 ft.-lb. of torque). The new electric engine does not penalize the Ducato’s strengths either as E-Ducato offers best-in-class load volume from 10 to 17 m3 (or 353 to 600 cubic feet), with a similarly best-in-class payload of up to 1,950 kg or 4,300 lbs.
While it looks like the E-Ducato will be limited to the EMEA region, we are hoping that its cousin the Ram ProMaster will also receive an eventual electrified variant for city use to compete with upcoming vehicles like Ford Transit Electric, which will hit the market in 2022.
