Ford Transit Custom BEV Multicab L2H1

John Kendall gets behind the wheel of the latest model to earn the Blue Oval’s iconic Transit tag

Ford Transit Custom BEV Multicab L2H1

John Kendall gets behind the wheel of the latest model to earn the Blue Oval’s iconic Transit tag

First, there were crew cab vans offering a second row of passenger seats but with a fixed bulkhead, limiting the amount of load that could be carried. Then came crew cabs with second-row seats fitted to a sliding and folding bulkhead, giving a choice of almost full loadspace or second-row seating.

Ford’s Multicab offers a neat solution for users who might still want the full length of the load floor and also seating for up to five. It involves an L-shaped load space with fixed bulkheads. Instead of three seats in the second row, there are just two. These are accessed through the nearside side sliding door, which, in the case of our test vehicle is fitted with one-way glass. It looks like a conventional crew cab from both sides as the offside sliding door is also fitted with one-way glass. The inside second row seat is up against a bulkhead. The space on the other side of the bulkhead, next to the offside sliding door, forms part of the load area, leaving a narrow section the full length of the load floor.

It’s wide enough to fit a ladder and there is no height limit as there would be with a through-loading bulkhead. In our test vehicle there was a small through-loading slot too, extending under the driver’s seat for some longer loads such as pipes. The result is a reasonable load space, with seating for five. A reminder that this is the L2 variant of the Transit Custom and an L1 Multicab would offer a smaller load area.

Our test vehicle was fitted with a range of options including Digital Blue Aqua paint (£650), Navigation Pack (£1,275), 17-inch twin-spoke alloys and all-weather tyres (£330), bringing the price up to £52,854.83 OTR (ex-VAT). Without this additional equipment, the Custom Multicab is well equipped anyway with standard equipment including 16-inch alloy wheels, automatic air conditioning, front and rear parking sensors, reversing camera, heated electric door mirrors, automatic LED headlights and LED rear lights, Quickclear heated windscreen, Ford Sync 4 with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, plus over-the-air updates, 13-inch touchscreen, heated and power adjustable driver’s seat with heated passenger seats, eight tie-down eyes in the load area, speed limiter and cruise control.

What you get is one of the best mid-sized electric vans on the market, using Ford’s sub-frame, rear-mounted electric motor from the larger Transit. The drive selector is on the left-hand side of the steering column and the van features a range of drive modes and regenerative braking options.

All Ford vans are fitted with a 5G modem as part of the Sync 4 package and this can open up Ford Pro’s suite of software applications such as telematics and other fleet management tools. The tilting steering wheel, with a clip-on tabletop cover, can act as a desktop for a laptop or tablet computer, or even as a lunch table. The optional Pro Power Onboard offers 230V connectivity, with power sockets in the load area. The system partitions the drive battery leaving a small part of its capacity for powering tools and equipment.