Mercedes-Benz Evito vs Mercedes-Benz Eqv300

What's the difference?

Numerous commercial van manufacturers are adding battery-electric vehicle (BEV) variants to their model line-ups.

Anecdotal evidence suggests these vehicles are best suited to city and suburban fleet duties, in which they cover short-loop daily driving distances that are comfortably within a manufacturer’s claimed battery range and return to depots each day to be recharged.

However, given that it’s still relatively early days for electric vans, potential buyers are faced with numerous potential deal-breakers compared to conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) equivalents.

These include higher purchase prices, limited driving ranges, longer 'refuelling' times, heavier kerb weights (due to their large batteries) and resulting smaller payload ratings. And they are usually not rated to tow.

However, they can also offer lower operating costs. And they produce zero tailpipe emissions, which according to Mercedes-Benz "creates a powerful marketing tool (for buyers) to demonstrate their commitment to operating sustainably".

We recently trialled M-B’s Vito-based contender in this pioneering LCV market segment, to see how it measures up in Australia’s highly competitive medium-sized (2.5-3.5-tonne GVM) van market.

As far as vehicle niches go, this is pretty niche. The Mercedes-Benz EQV is Australia’s first premium electric seven-seat commercial vehicle-based people mover.

The EQV falls under Benz’s electric ‘EQ’ banner and is based on the Vito van platform, but adapted to house an all-electric powertrain. 

However, unlike the popular EQA small SUV or recently launched EQB, don’t expect to see too many EQVs on the roads.

It is likely to appeal to airport transfer operators, hotels and other corporate customers that need to ferry multiple people around in comfort.

But given the kilometres those airport limo drivers can clock up in a day, is an EV capable of doing the job? And will these buyers be happy to fork out more than $150,000 for the privilege?