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Venturi Automobiles and PSA Peugeot Citroën Partner on EVs for La Poste; PSA Re-Launching EV Business
26 March 2008
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| The Berlingo 2. |
Venturi Automobiles and PSA Peugeot Citroën are partnering to supply electric vans based on the Citroën Berlingo First / Peugeot Partner Origin in response to a tender from the French Post Office, La Poste. One of the electric vans will be presented for the first time this week at the Ecological Vehicles and Renewable Energies (EVER) Monaco 2008 show, and will be available there for test use.
Issued in April 2007, the international tender from La Poste initially involves the supply of a small number of test vehicles. Following a six-month trial period, during which the vehicles will be thoroughly tested, La Poste will select the supplier of 500 mail delivery vans.
The electric Citroën Berlingos / Peugeot Partners will be tested with an entirely new power train proposed by Venturi. This compact technology makes it possible to fit the electric motor, battery and other EV components inside the van’s engine compartment, in lieu of the internal combustion engine. This offers the major advantage of ensuring the same load volume and payload as in a conventional version.
The van uses a 20 kWh sodium nickel chloride (Zebra) battery pack. The liquid-cooled electric motor delivers maximum power of 45 kW, and maximum torque of 173 Nm. The electric vans will have a range of up to 100 kilometers per charge, with a top speed of 100 kph.
PSA Peugeot Citroën will contribute its automotive expertise and experience, particularly in electric vehicles. Venturi will provide its particularly compact and innovative power train solution, as well as its short-run production capabilities.
The partnership will enable PSA Peugeot Citroën to relaunch its Electric Vehicle business, where it was a pioneer and European market leader, with nearly 10,000 vehicles sold. The Group believes that in the future, electric vehicles will play an important role in reducing automotive emissions, with sales being driven primarily by city delivery vans.
March 26, 2008 in Electric (Battery) | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)
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Comments
Is it a coincidence that the specs of this small van are about the same (even somewhat less than) the (1997) Toyota RAV-4 EV which had a top speed of 126 Km and a range of 160 +/- 30 Kmh?
Is Toyota that far (11+ years) ahead?
Posted by: Harvey D | Mar 26, 2008 2:22:14 PM
Correction:
Is it a coincidence that the specs of this small van are about the same (even somewhat less than) the (1997) Toyota RAV-4 EV which had a top speed of 126 Kmh and a range of 160 +/- 30 Km?
Is Toyota that far (11+ years) ahead?
Posted by: Harvey D | Mar 26, 2008 2:23:22 PM
I was starting to wonder where French Post office order had gone to.
Posted by: Neil | Mar 26, 2008 2:25:58 PM
It seems that Cleanova secured the order , then fell out with
renault who where supplying the kangoo as a donor car , or
probably renault fancied the business for themselves !
anyway two years or more were lost in the process and
I believe from what I understood at the Geneva motor show
Cleanova are no more
Posted by: andrew rose | Mar 26, 2008 3:16:25 PM
No! If that's true about Cleanova then I'm sorry to hear it. I liked it that they were developing a system that could be integrated into a variety of vehicles - seems a sensible way forwards.
Their website is still up whatever that's worth.
Posted by: Scatter | Mar 26, 2008 4:00:20 PM
Remind us, Harvey, how much each Rav4 EV actually cost.
Posted by: DC | Mar 26, 2008 9:22:37 PM
"..The partnership will enable PSA Peugeot Citroën to relaunch its EV business, where it was a pioneer and European market leader, with nearly 10,000 vehicles sold. The Group believes that in the future, electric vehicles will play an important role in reducing automotive emissions, with sales being driven primarily by city delivery vans..."
Have they really shipped 10,000 electric vehicles? Where are they all? I do occasionally come across individual examples of the electric Berlingo model in local news reports or advertised for sale -- but I presume such quantities must have included significant numbers within fleets, based at depots with recharge facilities. Can anyone tell me more about which fleets, and whether the vehicles are in routine use?
Posted by: Stan Wellaway | Mar 27, 2008 1:43:16 AM
Regarding Renault and Cleanova, I can believe that Renault would see the opportunity and go it alone.
They have been in the EV business before, and sold a plug-in series-hybrid delivery van (the Electroad) here in Europe years ago. Perhaps they've now realised that what didn't take off back then really will now....
Posted by: clett | Mar 27, 2008 5:09:59 AM
And Renault of course are closely involved with Shai Agassi's 'Better Place' initiative in Israel (and now Denmark) - for which the chosen vehicle is basically an electric Renault Megane. If that all pans out as planned, Renault will be into EVs bigtime.
Posted by: Stan Wellaway | Mar 27, 2008 6:19:41 AM
DC:
The original price of the RAV-4 EV was $42,510 + sale taxes. However, with all the incentives and tax credits, the net cost was about $30,000.
Five years latter, a used RAV-4 EV in good condition was worth about $60,000 on e-Bay.
You can expect about the same $42K for the French Post EV units, if not more.
Posted by: Harvey D | Mar 27, 2008 7:08:37 AM
Stan Wellaway - 10,000 is a bit of an exaggeration. Heuliez built 6,419 EVs for Peugeot and
Citroen between 1995 and 2003, with NiCads. Renault got a big order (250) for Electric Kangoo for the Norwegian Post Office in 2001 - the quality was so bad only 50 were delivered and the order was cancelled. Until recently you could still get a NiCad Kangoo EV from a Renault dealer in France if you bashed them enough (do a web search in French).
I saw a recent TV news item here in France on a company buying up these old NiCad EV vans, refurbishing them and re-selling them to commercial users.
La Poste have already had a demo fleet of Cleanova/ Kangoos (PHEV and EV versions promised) in test since 2005 so why is it back to the drawing board now with PSA instead and newcomers Venturi? Dassault Cleanova SVE was/are in partnership with Heuliez who have built more EVs than anyone else in the world in modern times. And SVE have been testing these vans and the Renault Clio with the TM3 series/parallel hybrid/ pure EV mode system since before 2005.
It all seems to be 1 step forward, 2 back. Though at least this PSA van is sensibly using the Zebra battery. No problem at all for utility fixed route daily driving. La Poste have 50,000 delivery vans, most of which could be electric.
Posted by: Emphyrio | Mar 28, 2008 3:11:00 PM
Well, I`m driving a Berlingo electrique. It´s a professional designed car with some mistakes that made it impossible for fleet use.
These mistakes are:
-A defect charge of Saft Akkus which cancelled the EV Program in Sweden.
-There is no discharge routine in the board charger so that there had been problems with the memory effect
-Akkus are in the front and rear crash zone. A small accident and you have an expensive Akku crash.
Catastrophal service by Citroen Dealers. "You didn´t tell me to use destillated water..."
No plan for the Sagem Box available.
But good acceleration! Water temperated Akkus. And we get electricity by heating our home (senertec.de)
Cu A.H.
Posted by: A.H. Germany | Mar 28, 2008 4:12:46 PM
Another team that was pre-selected is the Newteon/Fiat Doblo EV:
http://www.newteon.com/www2/en/Actualites/Actu_Newteon/Le_groupe_La_Poste_pre-selectionne_Newteon_20080320310/
It's envisaged that after the initial batch of 500 EVs, the supplier will produce several thousand vehicles....
Posted by: Karl-Uwe Strunzen | Mar 30, 2008 6:18:46 AM
