We have been talking a lot lately about the future of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) portfolio with electrification. Now, Fiat Professional is showing off their new 2020 Fiat Ducato Electric full-size van. The BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) Ducato Electric will join the natural gas Ducato Natural Power offering to complete the brand’s alternative fuel vehicles offerings.
The Ducato Electric has been developed on the basis of a specific, detailed study of real use the customers put on their vehicles, involving a year of data gathering. The data confirmed that more than 25% of the market already has a “BEV Attitude” in terms of use, routes, dynamics, and performances, and is therefore ready and waiting for a mobility change.
Professionals working in specific business areas are well placed to be early adopters of this technology, considering the growth in online commerce, postal and courier services, home ready-to-eat food deliveries, hub-spoke local transport, and the widespread need to ensure access to city centers, with their ever-increasing traffic restrictions on conventional fuel vehicles.
Excellent performance and eco-friendliness and a strong focus on TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), to best, respond to the different needs of every professional mission. As well as the most extensive range for an “all forward” vehicle, sophisticated and recognizable style, and cutting-edge technology. This same thinking underlines the Ducato Electric, the first full-electric Fiat Professional model, designed and developed according to the FCA’s most advanced quality standards.
So as well as offering a complete range of versions, Ducato Electric will also feature modular battery size options, with a range from 220 to 360 kilometers or about 137 to 224 miles (NEDC cycle) and different charging configurations. All combined with impressive performances: speed limited to 100 km/h (62 mph) to optimize energy use, maximum power of 90 kW or about 121 horsepower and maximum torque of 280 Nm or about 207 ft.-lbs of torque. What’s more impressive is the new electric powerplant does not penalize Ducato’s best-in-class load volumes from 10 to 17 m3 or about 108 to 183 sq ft and a payload of up to 1,950 kilograms or 4,300 lbs, the best in its category.
Fiat Professional intends to offer complete electric mobility solutions, based on the study of energy needs, able not only to cover every single mission but also to offer solutions ranging from vehicles to infrastructures, not forgetting any aspect of the whole world of services increasingly required by today’s new, constantly evolving mobility scenarios.
All in all, Fiat Professional has effectively exploited its technological heritage and experience to develop the electric version of its best-selling van, meeting the needs of every professional user and delivering innovation, performance and flexibility, working in line with the Ducato mantra of “more technology, more efficiency, more value” to offer customers the “zero emissions” version of the most efficient, versatile van on the market.
The new Ducato Electric is a vehicle with no half-measures: 100% Ducato, 100% Electric. It will therefore be Fiat Professional’s key product in the field of electric mobility, and especially in the transition now underway from the traditional “choice of vehicle” to a “choice of mobility” based on specific working and business factors, as the purchase decision switches from Total Cost of Ownership to Total Cost of Mobility.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the Ducato Electric will be making its appearance as a Ram ProMaster variant for North America. According to last year’s FCA Capital Day Market presentation, the Ram brand will not have an electric ProMaster van option.
