There’s an “thrilling” alternative for Nissan sellers to focus on small city companies with the brand new electrical model of the Townstar small panel van, says its supplier fleet boss.

“It can do nicely within the company public sector and can decide up the place e-NV200 left off, however really the SME market goes to be thrilling,” mentioned Nissan head of nationwide supplier fleet Marco Capozzoli. 

“Take into consideration the London space for instance: there’s a scrappage fee as much as £7,500 plus the £2,500 EV grant – that may make it actually reasonably priced to people who find themselves in that zone.

“We simply should be intelligent with our captive finance home by way of how we place the package deal, so for instance, we’re taking a look at a halo product based mostly on a one-year lease that’s going to incorporate your charger and upkeep,” he advised Fleet Information and AM group editor Stephen Briers

Nissan has strengthened the significance of its retail community with regards to gross sales of the brand new Townstar EV small panel van.

“Our technique is to make use of the supplier community for gross sales – it’s about worth somewhat than quantity,” mentioned Nissan LCV class supervisor, UK, Francesco Russiello. “We wish to appeal to the native buyer which suggests aftersales and the experience of the LCV community is essential.”

The community of 37 van centres contains 13 superfleet sellers who’re chargeable for the bigger company and leasing enterprise, which Nissan phrases ‘institutional fleet’.

This strategy additionally extends to the producer’s mid-size Interstar and huge Primastar vans.

“We don’t wish to be distracted within the converter world, so we make sort permitted panel, dropside and field vans which make up 80% of the market and these are offered by way of the supplier community,” Russiello mentioned.

“This yr we’re constructing our enterprise again up once more after rising our market share in 2022. We’re tailoring the suitable product for the suitable clients.”

Greater than 90% of Townstar registrations shall be electrical, in response to Nissan, because it unveiled the brand new powertrain possibility for the small panel van on the CV Present.

The Townstar EV replaces the e-NV200 and can provide zero-emission vary of 183 miles WLTP mixed (or as much as 269 miles on town cycle).

Nissan expects to promote 2,800 Townstar EVs in a full yr, exceeding the eNV200’s greatest yr of two,400.

With an identical payload and cargo house to the petrol model, and able to towing as much as 1,500kg, the Townstar EV is priced from £30,000 (after the plug-in van grant), round £10,000 greater than the petrol variant. It is going to be accessible as L1 quick wheelbase from June (L2 lengthy wheelbase will observe in August) and with 4 grades.

Its 45kWh battery affords each AC charging (11kW or 22kW) and 80kW DC fast charging, which expenses the battery from 15% to 80% in as little as 37 minutes. Battery thermal cooling is customary with the 22kW AC and 80kW DC CCS charging from Acenta grade onward.

The van comes with Nissan’s customary five-year or 100,000-mile van guarantee however extends the providing to eight years on the battery state of well being as much as 70%.