Electric vans à la carte.

“In this way we wanted to find out how our vehicle’s technology had to be designed in order to represent these driving profiles with an electric system,” said Reis concerning this phase of development. The results of this analysis flowed into the development process, and when the first test vehicles were ready, a number of models were provided to customers for testing in daily use. The designers wanted to see how the solutions they had developed actually measured up to the wear and tear of day-to-day use. “Again and again, we would try to find out what was working well and what wasn’t,” Reis explained. During this phase of testing, all the parameters of the vehicles were scrutinised, from the range and the payload to the charging capacity and charging time. “At the same time, we investigated and analysed the infrastructure at the customers’ locations to see whether the existing power lines were adequate for electrifying their fleets,” he added.