LDV EV80 Review
The LDV EV80 is probably one of the UK’s best kept secrets in the world of electric commercial vehicles especially at the 3.5 tonne GVW sector.
LDV EV80 – Background
Many people of a certain age can remember of the LDV of old, a very “spartan van” built to a price and owned by the legacy descendants of the old British Leyland of the sixties and seventies.
LDV or Leyland DAF Vans, although there are other acronyms that LDV apparently stands for, was the result of a management buy-out in the early nineties but lasted just over ten years and finished UK production in their final guise with the Maxus range in 2008, after the Russian manufacturer GAZ “pulled the plug on the Birmingham factory” following a takeover in 2006 and moved production to Russia.
Fast forward to 2019, and GAZ are a long distance memory with Chinese manufacturer Shanghai Automotive Group (SAIC) now the owner of the brand and manufacturing rights.
Whilst the Maxus, or should I say EV80 van may look very similar to the casual observer lots have changed under the bonnet including a very advanced all electric battery solution for the needs of a 3 .5 tonne light commercial user.
LDV EV80 – Specification
The 120kW / 134bhp motor with 320Nm of torque is more than adequate for this maximum weight van coupled to a 56kWh battery resulting in a 120 mile range currently unmatched by any other competitor. The vehicle is also available with both types of charging modes from a 7kW AC to 30kW rapid DC charger. Perhaps more importantly the EV80 is not only available as a van, but also in its chassis cab guise, can be ordered as a tipper, dropside caged tipper or even box van or curtainsider.
LDV EV80 – Weights and Dimensions
The LDV EV80 van comes in the long wheelbase medium rood version with a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) of 3500kgs and with an unladen weight of 2495kgs leaves 1005kgs for the payload.
The 10.2 cubic metre cargo area is 3300mm long 1770mm wide and 1710mm high between the wheelarches its 1330mm.
The chassis cab version has the same Gross Vehicle Weight as the van but the payload now increases to 1340kgs before a body is mounted on the chassis.
LDV EV80 – Driving impression
Its not often you have the opportunity to test drive an electric 3.5 tonne van on UK roads so we were more than happy when we were asked to test drive it in later half of 2018. The road test was integrated into the logistics of the Greenfleet roadshow events taking place around the country and consisted of taking it from Nottingham and Bournemouth and then along to Bristol to see if the van really does do the claimed 120 miles range, which it did and even surprised us with a little more but there was only a few flags, poles and bunting in the back !!