How Efficient Is Your Electric Van?

We measure the efficiency of your electric van using the published battery capacity of your van and its range.

From this we can work out the battery efficiency - it's a concept similar to the M.P.G. of vans with an internal combustion engine.

The higher the M.P.G. of a petrol or diesel van, the more efficient it is, and the same applies to electric vans.

Battery Efficiency

When you recharge an electric van, the range it can travel depends on the efficiency of the battery. There are many different forms of battery and it's not appropriate to look at all the battery types here, but for most electric van users you're looking at how far can the electric van travel until the next recharge.

Keep in mind too that;

• battery recharging is typically recommended to 80%;
• the last 20% of the battery recharging typically takes more, proportionately, than the first 80%;
• the first 20% of recharging of the battery (e.g. from 0% to 20%) is also typically not recommended.

The reasons for the above are that the first and last 20% of recharging can take disproportionately more long time, and can affect the life of the battery.

Now, the range of your electric van may not be an issue if you mainly travel short distances and can regularly top up the charge at home.

But what if you are travelling higher mileages, especially in a company van?

When you typically travel higher mileages, the efficiency of your van becomes more important.

What Is Battery Efficiency

It's very simple - it's how far you can travel compared to the size of your van's battery.

Think of it like the miles per gallon (mpg) of a petrol or diesel van. The higher the mpg, the more efficient the van is.

Except that, with electric vans, the way efficiency is measured applies in reverse.

How Is Efficiency Measured?

The more miles you can travel in an electric van compared to the size of its battery, the more efficient the van.

Efficiency is measured by how far an electric van can travel compared to the size of the battery. The unit of measure is per 100 miles.

So, for example, if you have a van with a 50kWh battery and it can travel 200 miles on a full charge, the efficiency is 50kWh/200 miles = 0.25kWh per mile.

A van with a 100kWh battery that can still only travel 200 miles on a full charge would be less efficient at 100kWh/200 miles = 0.50kWh per mile.

This can be confusing, as the measure of efficiency is reversed.

With mpg you want more miles per gallon, but with electric vans you want less kilowatt hours used per mile.

Why Is Electric Car Efficiency Important?

Electric van efficiency is important because it effects both the cost of recharging and the time it takes to recharge.

If you typically travel relatively short distances and can recharge at home then efficiency perhaps doesn't matter as much as the cost of your van or its features.

But if you are travelling longer daily journeys and you have to recharge away from home, the battery efficiency of your van becomes much more important.

Why? Well, if you are charging away from home the cost typically doubles.

Home charging typically costs around 25p per kilowatt hour or less (depending on your electricity tarrif, especially if you have one of the electric van tarrifs where you recharge during 'off-peak' hours).

Public chargers are typically about double the cost of home charging, and faster chargers (which can get you back on the road quicker) are even more expensive, some times up to 3-4 times the cost of home charging (or more).

So how do you know the efficiency of your electric van?

Well, that's why we built the efficiency calculator.

About Our Electric Car Efficiency Calculator

Our electric van efficiency calculator takes the published battery capacity of your new van and divides this by its range.

So, we take the battery capcity (in kilowatt hours) and divide this by the range.

The resulting number is the efficiency of your electric van - effectively, how far it will travel on one recharge.

Keep in mind one important point though - the efficiency of your electric van will depend on how you drive it and whether you have enabled recharging when braking.

Keep in mind too that chargers may often only top-up your battery to around 80% of the battery capacity and therefore 80% of the range.

Let's Get Started

You can return to the battery efficiency calculator by clicking here.

We also recommend that press the 'Enter' key on your keyboard/device when you type a value into a box so that the calculator recognises that a recalculation is required.