[Dormant] Electric Vehicles

Kia Europe has a plan to become the go-to choice in Europe and the UK for battery-electric light commercial vehicles, known in the auto industry as LCVs. The light commercial vehicle is how business gets done. It is the van that painters, plumbers, carpenters, and electricians use to get to a job site with all the tools and supplies they need. It is how most things get delivered, from flowers to packages, and office furniture to auto parts. An LCV is dead simple. It is a box on wheels with a place for a driver and one passenger and big doors to make loading and unloading easy.

Many companies have dreamed of manufacturing an electric version of the light commercial vehicle, primarily because the major automakers have shown little interest in doing so. Workhorse was one of the first with its N-Gen all-wheel drive van, a product we thought would be a sure winner. StreetScooter decided to build its own electric delivery vans after it couldn’t find a manufacturer to make them. Chanje said it would make one, as did Arrival and several others. Today, Mercedes has the E-Sprinter, Ford has the E-Transit, and Ram has the Promaster EV, but all those other companies have fallen by the wayside.