Citroën Berlingo Electric debuts at CV Show 201310 April 2013

At £21,000 including batteries, the Citroën Berlingo Electric made its UK debut at the CV Show in Birmingham yesterday (9 April 2013).

The electric van, which goes on sale later this year, takes over from the first generation Berlingo Electrique van, launched in 1998 and on sale until 2005.

"The new Berlingo Electric has been launched to meet the transport requirements of a number of significant specialist sectors," explained Scott Michael, Citroën's head of commercial vehicles & business centre programme. "Our previous electric LCV experience showed that these include local authority applications, such as meals on wheels, parks departments and other council applications," he continues. In addition, we expect to see Berlingo Electric demand come from urban private sector businesses."

Citroën also launched other new LCV products at the CV Show, including the Dispatch HDi 125 L1H1 1200 six-seat Crew Van and 'Stop & Start' equipped Relay vans.

The new Berlingo Electric incorporates a permanent magnet synchronous 49kW electric motor the bonnet, with 22.5kWh lithium ion battery pack underneath the load deck, and is claimed to provide a range of up to 106 miles and a top speed of 68.75mph. Charging from a domestic socket takes around 12 hours, although Citroën says the van can be charged to 80% capacity in 35 minutes using a 380V three-phase terminal.

Michael says that, thanks to the Berlingo being designed as an electric vehicle from the outset, its load compartment space is not reduced by battery intrusion. Hence, the load compartment cube of 3.3m3 (extendable to 3.7m3),/load deck length of 1.8m (extendable to 3.0m) and payload of 636kg – equivalent to that of a similar diesel-powered Berlingo van.

Aside from all the usual goodies and safety systems, as per the standard Berlingo, the Electric's instrumentation also includes features, such a:s Eco-driving information; an energy consumption/regeneration indicator; an instantaneous energy consumption gauge and an auxiliaries consumption gauge, which displays data on heating, air conditioning and secondary power usage.

As for the Dispatch, the range has now expanded with a six-seater HDi 125 six-speed manual L1H1 1200 Crew Van, with a payload of 1,084kg. As with the existing Dispatch L2H1 Crew Van, the new model has a driver's seat and dual passenger seat in the front, but with a second row of three seats, accessed by twin, sliding rear doors.

At load deck level, the bulkhead has a 195mm deep by 1,100mm wide aperture under the rear seats, giving a maximum floor length of 1,780mm in the rear load compartment.

Author
Brian Tinham

Related Companies
Citroen UK Ltd

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