Faster and wider than the ‘picnic bus’
We apparently never have enough compact electric vans in Europe, so Avevai from Singapore sees opportunities for its Iona XS. That is in fact a kei car, but also for European roads.
To our knowledge, vehicles from Singapore are not yet on European roads, so for that reason alone this Iona XS is interesting. The small van also has a Japanese touch, because according to Avevai it meets the requirements set for a so-called kei car in Japan. Extra compact and therefore ideal for city use. The XS is 3.70 meters long, 1.48 meters wide and 2.05 meters high and weighs 1,450 kg. Its payload is not too impressive at 500 kg, but it should be sufficient for a large load of groceries. The registration is done by an electric motor placed on the rear axle with 27 hp and 112 Nm. This also immediately tells us that ‘XS’ does not stand for ‘eXtra Fast’, but this is not a ‘moped car’ either. It can reach a speed of 75 km/h, considerably faster than the 45 km/h that applies to so-called L7e vehicles.
For many European countries, 75 is of course a somewhat inconvenient speed, because on rural roads and the right lane of the highway, 80 or 90 is the norm. On the other hand, the The Ionia The smallest is 11.52 kWh and the second 23 kWh, resulting in a driving range of over 100 or over 200 kilometers respectively. Fast charging is not possible, so dripping with 2.2 kW at home or at work is the maximum. What’s even more interesting is that Avevai offers a 4-year or 200,000 km warranty, ‘whichever comes first’. It seems quite a job to us to reach that 50,000 km per year between charges and at a maximum speed of 75 km/h, but 4 years is of course very nice.
When you see such an electric delivery device, you probably immediately think of Picnic’s shopping vans. That company uses the French Goupil G4, which at 1.20 meters is considerably narrower than the Iona XS. The G4 also has a top speed of 50 km/h, so that fewer demands are placed on (driving) the vehicle. The Goupil G6 (top: 80 km/h) comes closer, but at 1.70 meters it is considerably wider than the Iona. Avevai probably wants to compete mainly on price with the Iona XS, because it is competitive for this segment. The company mentions amounts of between €13,000 and €15,000. We don’t have to expect this van in the Netherlands for a while: Avevai will start in the wonderful collection of countries United Kingdom, Romania and Malta.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl