Toyota Proace Electric

Report 1: The electric Proace Toyota van joins out fleet

Does an electric van make sense if you don't live in a city? We're living with the Toyota Proace Electric for six months to find out.

Date: 17 December 2025 | Current mileage: 647 | Claimed efficiency: 2.3 miles/kWh | Actual efficiency: 2.4 miles/kWh

There are some huge incentives around electric vans at the moment with the majority of manufacturers chasing their ZEV mandate ratios to avoid penalties – all of which means it may well be worth looking closely at an EV to see if it will suit your purposes and take advantage of some of the discounts on offer.

But while higher-mileage drivers may immediately discount an electric van from their requirements, the landscape has changed sufficiently in recent months to make them much more viable than before.

These days, there are many more public charge-points than there were just a year ago and, importantly, most are DC fast-chargers, which removes a lot of the fear and frustration from owning an electric van, alleviating range-anxiety and minimising recharge times.

This is exactly what we’re looking to delve into with our six-month-long test of Toyota’s Proace Electric – as a rural-dweller who rarely drives in congested urban areas and who doesn’t have access to home charging, does an electric van make sense? Crack this market and the barriers to EV adoption come down further. 

We’ve gone for the long-range version of the Proace Electric, fitted with the 75kWh battery pack to give a WLTP range of 205 miles – which is a return of 2.7mi/kWh. Admittedly, it’s the middle of winter, but the best we’ve seen so far is 2.4mi/kWh – not horrendous for such a big vehicle by any stretch, especially as we’re doing a lot of A-road driving

We’re seeing a more realistic range of around 160 miles, with the few 10-80% top-ups we’ve done so far coming in at just over £20 each. Price-wise, that’s not far off parity with a diesel model, but the regularity with which it needs to be charged up could become tiresome over time – we’ll report back. 

Otherwise, initial impressions are pretty positive. We’ve gone for the mid-range Icon trim – the one that Toyota says will be the best-seller – and it has all of the things we need but none of the stuff we don’t.

It’s not luxurious, but the infotainment system is great, syncing easily and wirelessly with Apple CarPlay and the driving experience is smooth and responsive. Most passengers who’ve been in the van so far have been impressed by its refinement, while we especially like the fact that most of the driver-assistance systems aren’t particularly intrusive. 

We’ve a few tasks lined up for our Toyota between now and its return, including some that feel a little ambitious. We’ll reveal more in due course, but for now, if you’ve got a Proace Electric, or any of its Stellantis sister vans, we’d be intrigued to hear how you’re getting on with it...