Europcar adds Mercedes eVito to commercial fleet

Vehicle hire specialist Europcar Vans & Trucks has expanded its green offering with a new range of Mercedes vehicles.

Customers can now hire the Mercedes-Benz eVito from a number of key Europcar locations close to the London ULEZ and other UK clean air zones.

The all-electric eVito van has a range of approximately 160 miles, can carry a maximum payload of 807kg and has a loading space of up to 6.0m3, making it ideal for many business purposes. It can be charged in 35 minutes when using a rapid DC charger.

The move follows an initial demonstration programme, which allowed businesses to trial the Mercedes-Benz eVito in real-world conditions for a few days or weeks. Following that success, Europcar is moving ahead with a wider, long-term roll-out of the vans.

Keith Shorter, Europcar’s UK vans and trucks director believes the roll-out will be crucial in getting more businesses on board with electric motoring.

He said: “Our goal is to dispel the myths around EVs. Renting the eVito is the perfect solution to see how electric motoring could fit within their business model and practices.

“The eVito is already a popular and practical choice for businesses that want to reduce their environmental impact. And making it available from our locations is an exciting step forwards in our mission towards a greener fleet for our customers.”

Europcar believes that renting electric vans gives businesses the chance to test an electric van in real-world conditions before they make a commitment to replacing a petrol or diesel fleet with all-electric vans.

Keith Shorter continued: “Businesses use commercial vehicles for a wide range of jobs, from multiple local trips in a day to longer motorway journeys. As such, some trips will be better suited to electric vans than others.

“Consideration must be given to range and charging options before investing in any zero or low emissions vehicles and rental gives businesses an invaluable real-world test drive experience through which they can see what will work for their business.

“It also highlights what adaptations may need to be made to their current ways of working ahead of the 2035 deadline for petrol and diesel vehicle sales, when they will have to move to alternative fueled vehicles.”