I’ve built two camper vans, but my daughter is begging me to build one with these vans. I told her as soon as they go on surplus lol
I think it might be really tricky though. Ostensibly the battery warehouse is in the base of the van, so that would definitely make routing utilities like waste water tricky. And not sure how you’d have a heater; electric heat would decimate an electric system and there’s no liquid fuel to speak of.
Remember: it’s only worthwhile if it can get you home too. I guess if you’re doing on-grid only camping it would be fine, but I usually build for a feasible 3-day off grid.
Re heater, wouldn’t you use a heat pump? As a percentage of the energy needed to run a heavy van, heating the interior space with a heat pump would be pretty minimal.
Fixed nat-gas containers or other nat-gas installation can be a PITA though. Here in Germany, anything permanently installed means you have to do extra checkups every two years.
The VW California has been a huge success for ages.
When they do an ID.Buzz California, it's going to be fully sold out for _years_. EV is the perfect platform for a camper van, you can get so much complexity out of the system by having electric everything.
> EV is the perfect platform for a camper van, you can get so much complexity out of the system by having electric everything.
Only if you're happy with being locked to camping lots and RV parks providing 230V outlets. Anyone willing to go off-road/wild camping however... when you're going far out of civilization (which is easy enough to do in Europe and even easier in the US), the last thing you need is your battery dying right when you can't afford it. For an ICE based camper, everyone I know just puts a jerry can or two in it which is almost always enough to get you to a gas station or to keep you supplied with fuel to keep warm over night, but that's not possible with an EV camper.
The smart choice is to have a separate generator to charge the batteries, maybe offset some of the electricity use with solar panels.
But it all depends on what you use the RV for. If you want to go to the Appalachians for weeks without human contact, go with the liquid fuel option and bring a lot of it with you. Maybe a small solar panel for electronics.
For a random camper like me with access to a pretty good EV charging network the lack of electricity won't be a problem. the ID.Buzz has a 77kWh battery that can easily run everything I need for multiple days without needing to charge.
Are you aware that a car parked isn't at all the same scenario?
It is not like remodeling an RV is going to affect the gas tank. But it sure will make a difference to the battery usage. A gas tank doesn't age in the same way as a battery either, and we don't have as much experience with the kind of battery packs used in cars either (and they differ wildly between models).
Probably less rare than a fuel tank spontaneously exploding. Has an ICE car manufacturer ever recalled a vehicle and said don't park it inside until you get it recalled?
All the time. I've owned several cars which have had "don't park it inside" kind of recalls. All of them ICE cars. I've had a neighbor's house burn down because of a "don't park in your garage" issue that led to a recall; once again an ICE car not an EV.
Hehe, there was a fire in a parking garage next to an airport in Norway a few years ago which basically destroyed the garage and all cars inside. People were really quick to blame it on an EV igniting and raving about how EV's should be banned from parking garages and on and on for days until investigation showed the fire started in a diesel car.
(Granted, the many EV's in there made the fire much harder for fire fighters to put out)
