A new electric delivery van has been unveiled by Charge at the Wired 2016 conference. Designed to be simple and safe, the lightweight vehicle can cover 100 miles on a single charge and will have everything required for autonomous driving when regulations allow.
Currently in development, the Charge vehicles will go on sale next year and will be range-extended electric vehicles. The 100 mile range can be supplemented with a dual mode for longer journeys, topping up the battery to extend that range to 500 miles. Exactly how this happens has not yet been revealed.
Using lightweight composite materials, the Charge vehicles will range in size from 3.5 tonnes to 26 tonnes. Designed with simplicity in mind, Charge claims that one person could build an entire vehicle in just four hours. Scaled up, a workforce of just 10 employees in two shifts a day could build 10,000 vehicles a year. The first factory will open in 2017 near Charge’s HQ in Oxfordshire.
Charge has designed the vehicles to both meet London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone requirements – and clean air zones in other cities around the country and the world – thanks to it’s zero-tailpipe emission capability. It will also comply with London’s new ‘Direct Vision Standard’, which is designed to make the capital’s streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
Charge CEO Denis Sverdlov said: “We find trucks today totally unacceptable. At Charge we are making trucks the way they should be – affordable, elegant, quiet, clean and safe. We are removing all the barriers to entry for electric vehicles by pricing them in line with conventional trucks, giving every fleet manager, tradesman or company, no matter how big or small, the opportunity to change the way they transport goods and make our towns and cities better places to live in.”
Sverdlov is also in charge of Roborace, the all-electric autonomous driving support series for Formula E, which is due to launch next season. Charge has become the official electric truck partner of Formula E too, and the company will use developments at both Charge and Roborace to improve the other’s vehicles.
