Yes, the Ram ProMaster is the Fiat Ducato. It's been sold in North America since 2013. It's been a very popular choice in Europe for many years, and has also been rebadged and sold by other automakers in the EU.
We extensively evaluated all the vans on the market when we started. The ProMaster may be ugly (IMHO), but it's a great platform. The only complaints are the Engine and Transmission (Especially), Most fleet owners surveyed claim they have a much lower TCO than the others. This may also be why you see cost-conscious fleet owners now choosing it over the Transit and especially the Sprinter. Yeah, the Sprinter was the first of its class of European vans to be imported and it gets all the lust, but the ProMaster once converted is a MUCH better van even outside of the powertrain. Once we eliminate the Engine/Transmission and it's an EV, the rest is really good. First off is the low load floor, secondly is load capacity. Once it's converted to an ePro, we give it Tesla's awesome powertrain, and it's low GG and intertial moment, it's the best driving/handling van you've ever driven. If you are in LA, SF, or Seattle, let me know and you can come drive it and see for yourself. Our first customer was an airport shuttle customer who runs vans continuously to move people to/from a major international airport. They have accumulated extensive operating costs on all Van platforms they could get their hands on, including the electric offerings so far. After about 2 months of service they were raving about how good our van is, and immediately placed orders for more. We currently have other fleets testing our vans and the results have been awesome. We get more range, more power, better driving dynamics and WAY more reliability than any other electric van. The other OEMs are scrambling to get their offerings to the market, but they are probably still a few years out, and we are confident they won't have the range and performance ours has, and there's no way they can get anywhere near our cost. Maybe when we get a bit bigger we can introduce a new front end treatment to get rid of the ugly factor. Luckily fleet owners aren't as concerned about looks! =) On Tue, Mar 23, 2021 at 4:34 PM Willie via EV <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 3/23/21 6:16 PM, (-Phil-) wrote: > > We haven't asked. Right now the next year of ProMaster production has > > all been bought up by Amazon. Our preferred model is to convert a used > > van that's already paid for it's environmental manufacturing cost, that > > way our total footprint is way less. Plus it's way lower cost. Fleets > > that own high-mileage vans can now take something they've already > > depreciated, and renew it and drop the operation and maintenance costs > > by a huge amount. It's a win-win, and we greatly extend the life of the > > chassis. > > > > Of course we are happy to convert a brand new van with a brand new Tesla > > drivetrain if a customer wants it, but it costs more, both in $$$ and to > > the environment. > > Thanks! The situation (slowly) dawns on me. For the one off customer, > do you broker used vans? Or, is the customer expected to do his own > shopping? > > Before this discussion, I was unaware that the new vans existed. It > seems that they must have been in service, though, for 5+ years. > _______________________________________________ > Address messages to [email protected] > No other addresses in TO and CC fields > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ > LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20210323/f38871ac/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Address messages to [email protected] No other addresses in TO and CC fields UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
