Cheap, electric-focused newcomers from Asia are forcing established brands to rethink – and get in on the act
Established van brands are having to adapt as they face threat of a slew new electric-focused rivals from Asia, amid a continued struggle to hit stringent EV sales targets set by the UK government.
Vans are subject to their own version of the zero-emission vehicle mandate, which requires companies to post ever-rising percentage of sales of electric sales versus diesel sales, up to 24% this year.
Demand for electric vans hasn’t kept pace, however: just 6673 were sold in the first quarter of this year, equating to just 8.1% of the van market, up from 7.6% for last year.
“At the moment, it’s a really tough target,” Ford UK boss Lisa Brankin told Autocar at the Birmingham Commercial Vehicle show on 21 April. “Genuine customer demand for electric commercial vehicles isn’t in line with the trajectory.”
Van brands are looking with trepidation at future EV targets as fleets and smaller businesses continue to be much more cautious about electrification than car buyers, despite increased choice.
“We need to face the reality,” Renault UK MD Adam Wood told journalists at the same show. “At the moment, the target of 70% by 2030 doesn’t look realistic.”
The UK’s Society of Motor Manfuacturers and Traders (SMMT) is pushing government to urgently review the mandate, especially after a disappointing March in which electric van sales actually decreased from the same period last year.
“We’re saying ‘bring it forward’, because the circumstances when it was conceived were totally different. Industrial energy costs have gone up threefold, for example,” SMMT CEO Mike Hawes told Autocar.
Some of the established van makers are finding the transition easier than others.
Volkswagen leads electric van sales after the first three months of the year, with 1931, to capture a 29% share of the market, largely due to the success of the retro ID Buzz.
Ford is second, with 1792 sales, although the company’s long-held status as the UK’s leading van brand means it’s still well behind on its mandate target, at less than 8%.
Stellantis meanwhile has struggled this year to parlay its local production of its compact electric vans at Ellesmere Port into anything approaching success, with its biggest EV van brand, Vauxhall, clocking up just 253 sales so far this year.
Stronger competition is coming from Asian brands in the electric space. Kia is the biggest challenger so far this year, thanks to its new PV5, with 1235 sales in Q1 catapulting it into third place in the electric van chart.
The Korean brand has poured $3 billion of investment into its new global electric van business is rolling out several models: the mid-sized PV7 is due to arrive next year and the large PB9 in 2029.
Kia UK CEO Paul Philpott touted the company’s ground-up approach to electric van development, telling Autocar: “I think it’s quite difficult to convert a diesel van into an electric van, so I think our products have an advantage.”
So far Chinese brands haven’t made the same dent in the European van market as they have in the car market, but that looks set to change.
At the Birmingham show, new electric vans from Jaecoo owner Chery, commercial vehicle giant Foton, MG sister brand Maxus and Geely-owned Farizon demonstrated the seriousness of the planned attack on established brands.
The incumbents are in no doubt about the seriousness of the threat. “I think now going forward, we should view new Chinese brands as major competitors for the future,” Philpott said.
The struggles of Maxus demonstrate that being able to tap into low-cost electric supply chains back home doesn’t automatically guarantee success in the UK market. But the Chinese are also quick to learn. For example, Farizon absorbed reaction to its highly specced but expensive SV electric van launched last year to create a smaller version dubbed V7E that starts from £29,000 (excluding VAT and a government EV grant).
“The market is getting quite competitive,” Kate McLaren, Farizon’s head of marketing and sales operations in the UK, told Autocar. “So we needed a product that was equally capable versus SV but at a more compelling price point.”
Competition includes the Foton Cavan, which is due later this year with a similar size interior space of 7.1m3 and a 50kWh battery with pricing expected around the same £30k mark. Chery says its van range is coming in 2027 in three different sizes. And Maxus is planning a new e5 model that could prove more relevant than its current vans, which are either too small or expensive in EV form.
What the upstart competitors weren’t expecting was Ford launching its very own Chinese-sourced, low-cost van in the same one-tonne sector. The Transit City, pictured below, made its debut at the Birmingham show, broadening Ford’s Transit range to five models.
“It’s fair to say Transit City was a bit of a surprise,” McLaren said. “It just underlines the need for more capable but more accessible vans in the market.”
The Transit City is a heavily reworked version of a van from Ford’s joint-venture partner in China, JAC, with the requisite crash protection and additional cargo space liberated by making it front-wheel-drive.
Its launch was prompted by customer feedback and the need to stay ahead of the Chinese.
“We can sit back and let them come take our lunch or we can join them and try and combat it,” chief programme engineer Simon Robinson told Autocar.
Like the Farizon and Kia PV5 with which it will do battle, it starts at under £30,000 but still offers a payload of 1600kg and 8.5m3 of load space.
The downside is a relatively short range of 158 miles from a 56kWh battery – but, as the name suggests, it’s aimed at urban-based companies.
The price will be compelling compared with the £45,510 asked for the electric version of Ford’s best-selling Transit Custom, which is bigger in footprint but not in load space, thanks to the Transit City’s EV platform.
Ford’s pitch to customers is that the Transit City is a low-cost van from a brand you trust with all the support you need to keep you moving if anything goes wrong – a key moat for established brands that they believe will keep them protected from the push by untried Chinese brands for a while yet.
With cheaper entrants, the government’s maximum £5000 purchase grant and the current cost of fuel, electric vans are overcoming the cost differential to diesel vans.
“I don’t think that the adoption is about price [any more], it’s about customer acceptance,” Ford’s Brankin said.
Charging remains a sticking point. For those able to charge from home or a depot and stay within the single-charge range (often well beyond 200 miles in bigger models), electric vans are a no-brainer. But data taken from Ford’s electric vans suggests that accounts for only 20% of users, with the rest being forced to use public chargers.
That’s where the economics get screwed up: Ford research (conducted before the Iran war-related price spikes) suggests that driving an EV using public chargers is more expensive than sticking with a diesel.
“The cost of public charging is something that the government needs to look closely at,” said Renault’s Wood. “You can pay up to 90p per kWh for the fastest charging, and that has a real impact, particularly for fleets, in terms of the ownership cost equation.”
On top of that, the downtime associated with charging can also be prohibitive. “The speed of charging is absolutely key,” said Wood.
Renault will address that through the launch of the new Trafic E-Tech in the first quarter of 2027, with an 800V electrical architecture dropping its 10-80% charging time to 20 minutes.
For many van users, switching to an EV remains impossible. But for a growing smaller percentage, the potential savings are looking more and more tempting, especially with diesel prices bumping £2 per litre.
Top electric van brands in the UK in the first three months of 2026. Source: SMMT
Manufacturer
Volume
Share of EV sales
Total
6673
Volkswagen
1931
29%
Ford
1792
27%
Kia
1235
18%
Toyota
444
6.7%
Renault
254
3.8%
Vauxhall
253
3.8%
Maxus
217
3.2%
Mercedes-Benz
163
2.4%
Citroën
104
1.6%
Peugeot
102
1.5%
