Check out LEVC’s new London Taxi-based van

The London Electric Vehicle Company (or LEVC for the sake of our poor keyboards) has been talking about turning its modern-day London Taxi into a panel van for quite a few years now. 

Since then, a whole heap of plug-in hybrid vans have come on to the market, but the Geely backed firm has finally shown us its finished article – the VN5.

Of course, the Taxi and this VN5 are slightly different to the norm. That’s because LEVC’s ‘eCity’ technology deploys an electric motor which always drives the rear wheels. When the 31kWh battery is depleted (after about 58 miles in the VN5), the 1.3-litre range extender engine kicks in and charges it back up again to provide a total range of over 300 miles.

The VN5 gets rapid charging, LED lights, cruise control and a Volvo-like nine-inch touchscreen as standard equipment, and then there’s either Business, City and Ultima specs to upgrade things, as well as optional Comfort and Safety packs. We’re yet to get confirmation on which red top tabloids can be specced to grace the dashboard, though. 

But enough of that… now for some proper van stuff. The VN5 has a 5.5m3 capacity (meaning it can fit two Euro sized pallets in the back) and a gross payload of 830kg. That side door is big enough to load a pallet into too. It’s all clever stuff. Oh, and it gets the 10.1m turning circle of the taxi so it should be super nimble in town.

What else can we tell you? Well, the VN5 has service intervals of 25,000 miles and comes with a five-year/150,000-mile warranty. Mmmmm, sensible.