VW's First Electric Van To Launch In UK Costs £42,000 Plus VAT

Yup, the Abt eTransporter 6.1 will not come cheap.

The new Abt eTransporter 6.1 will be Volkswagen’s first electric van to arrive in the UK, the German manufacturer has announced. Priced at £42,060 before VAT, the vehicle will offer a zero-emission range of up to 82 miles, while the maximum payload will be just over one tonne.

That’s made possible by the 37 kWh battery that nestles under the floor of the load bay. Placed there to avoid impinging on load space, the system offers rapid charging capability. That means charging to 80 percent can take 45 minutes from a 50 kWh rapid charger, while filling the battery from a 7 kW domestic wallbox would take five-and-a-half hours.

Officially speaking, that electricity will feed an electric motor with 111 bhp, but the standard drive mode will only make 75 percent of that power available at first. Not until the driver plants their right foot and triggers the modified automatic gearbox’s ‘kickdown’ function will the full might of the motor be unleashed.

That system, combined with a regenerative braking system that harvests energy while the van is decelerating, is designed to improve range. The vehicle can gather the energy normally wasted while slowing and redeploy it when it moves off again, effectively increasing the total range.