I can’t reproduce the photo here for copyright reasons (but seek, and you may well find) but Kia has been spotted out in the wild testing a heavily disguised PV5 van. The company is heavily committed to an attack on the electric van sector with three models planned, the PV5 being the smaller of the trio. Interestingly, the van appeared to be accompanied by a Volkswagen ID Buzz Cargo, presumably for comparison purposes. This leads me to think that the newcomer might be entering the ‘large small van’ sector, currently pretty much owned by the VW. 

It seems to have been a while coming, but you can now pop into your local Renault dealership and order the Trafic E-Tech. I think this one will do well – although the design of the van is now over 10 years old, it’s still popular and lends itself well to the tasks put to it by the tradesperson. In electric guise, it’s (officially) cover up to 186 miles on a full charge, has a payload of up to 1222kgs and, can pull a 920kg trailer. 

Volkswagen, after what seems like an eternity where it has been drip feeding teaser images of a van which, fundamentally we are already familiar with (ie, its platform sharing sibling, the Ford Transit Custom) has now released a full set of images of the new Transporter. Visually, there’s a different front perspective but otherwise not much worthy of note when comparing it to the Ford. Disappointingly, the electric version won’t be available at launch, a strange decision given that the electric Custom is already on sale, and will no doubt steal a march on the VW. Launch date of the van is quoted as ‘2025’.