I wonder if there’s any reason this wouldn’t work?? Has a range big enough to be practical and is a big enough van for a decent conversion.
Surprised there doesn’t seem to be anyone converting these yet…unless I’m missing something?
250mile range unless I’m mistaken and I’m presuming once you kit it out as a camper it would be considerably less with the extra weight. Would also be interesting to run electrical stuff on it as don’t think you could run a split charger off it.
E-vans have, in the EU at least, a higher load capacity to allow for the extra eighty if the batteries. 4.25t as opposed to 3.5t
Had a guy delivering the other week using an e-Sprinter. He said the range was crap once loaded and even worse now during the colder months.
My Ducato build left me with 580kg payload (vehicle weight with furniture etc was 2920kg).
I don't do many miles, but I spend the majority of my time parked up away from campsites and civilisation in general. Knowing I had to charge the van continuously would get on my tits. As it is a full tank of diesel can last me ages and that's with both the heater and the stove running on diesel.
There was a group of lads in Australia travelling the country with a self built solar camper. All the awnings (360°) were solar panels. Think they managed 60-80km a day.
The larger van has a supposed max range of 285 miles. Not sure how much less that gets with the weight of a camper.
I hate the idea of going back to a diesel. I do find it strange that these new electric vans have batteries smaller than a lot of cars.
A bigger battery would be even heavier and further eat into payload. And although your average Amazon/DPD delivery van is on the road all day I can't imagine they actually do that many miles. So it's about daily range between overnight charges Vs ultimate range I imagine? Which is obviously different for someone looking for a leisure vehicle
I think in the UK, MGW doesn’t alter for fuel type, hence the terrible range of E Vans.
A drive to Wales from Reading recently in an E Transit Custom, took way longer and cost more than a diesel as we ‘filled’ it with electric at a fast charger costing over £40 to do under 140 miles.
Fine for local deliveries in towns, the ideal place for an EV, but any sort of high mileage doesn’t make sense in them at present.
Which is kind of the point of a camper isn’t it?
Although you could at least relax in the back whilst it’s charging.
Yep probably a no go for the time being sadly….although if you could still get an actual 250 miles range out of them I think that would work for me - reality probably worse once you take into account weight and weather etc.
most campsites don’t support ev charging, or if they do, it’s not on the pitches. Public ev charging seems to be a roulette both in reliability and in price. I watched a recent test of ev cars and using public chargers they cost more than the diesel equivalent.
It’s not there yet for me.
3.5t vehicles in the uk can also be driven on the same licence in ev form up to 4.25t
This is what you want! Unfortunately you need pockets as deep as Dale Vince has to afford it.....
Not about campers, but I had heard that one of the transfer companies in Bourg St Maurice had been given an electric mini-bus to trial and in the mountainous terrain, fully loaded it emptied the batteries in a very short distance. I imagine the same would apply to a camper.
I watched a recent test of ev cars and using public chargers they cost more than the diesel equivalent.
The problem with these tests is that they focus on a single journey, but what matters for most of us is overall costs. Yes, the odd long journey in an EV might work out more expensive than in a diesel car, but if you are filling up for peanuts for most of your journeys then the real question is "can I justify the cost of keeping a diesel car just for those long journeys".
Camper vans are an interesting one and I think it depends on how you are going to use them. If you are leading a nomadic life where you are drifting through the countryside with no time pressures then an EV might work out just fine. If a camper to you means a long drive to snatch a couple of days away from your busy life then an EV is probably not going to work.
Part of my thought process was that it would be intended in a couple of years as part of a move to S Scotland and retiring / semi-retiring. Most journeys into coastal or wild areas within 50 miles or so for the odd day or two, so most charging at home.
But would be much happier if we had a better charging network like eg Norway where pretty much every car park even in the middle of no here has EV charging.
Great thread. I keep meaning to look into this as I am about to spend an insane amount of money on a motorhome and trying to work out if spending insane + £20k makes sense or not.
I think in the UK, MGW doesn’t alter for fuel type, hence the terrible range of E Vans.
It does. Where the majority of us can drive vehicles up to 3.5tonnes on a normal licence, if that vehicle is an EV, whether car or van, that weight limit is increased up to 4.25tonnes.
We've got 4.25t EV Transits at work. The payload is actually higher than the diesel 3.5t, up from about 1400kg to 1750kg. A normal license holder can drive them under the BEV exemption, however they do come with a 56mph limiter and can't use the outside lane as in all other respects they are an LGV. However the 56mph limiter also helps range massively.
If you can run the 'house loads' from the high voltage battery, I imagine you could really get a couple of weeks use easily with plenty of range to go and recharge.
(New) Master Etech has the same 87kw battery as the Renault Scenic which is what gives it the best range of the current crop of big leccy vans. If you go for the long and medium 4.0t van (biggest available from Renault) then it's got a nominal payload as standard of 1,614kg for your conversion. Internal height of 1.885m, internal length on the floor of 3.855m. Will accept rapid charging up to 130kW. Hasn't got v2l but it's coming soon apparently - once that comes in I think it would be a great solution for folk looking for a camper!
The larger van has a supposed max range of 285 miles. Not sure how much less that gets with the weight of a camper.
Extra weight of a camper will affect range but not as much as different driving conditions or ambient temperature will.
^ Caveat that all of this is based on me playing around with Ford's range calculator tool using the smaller E-Transit Custom. Estimated range only reduced by 11% between 0% and 100% payload (approx 930kg max). Bearing in mind these are estimates and theoretical from Ford.
Driving conditions (e.g. urban, motorway, etc) and ambient temperature appear to have a much bigger effect on range, according to that Ford calculator, e.g.
Payload makes a small difference to range, e.g. mixed driving, 10*C, difference 0% vs 100% is -11% range (-17 miles).
Ambient temperature makes quite a difference, e.g. mixed driving, 25% payload, difference 25*C vs 0*C is -31% range (-54 miles)
Driving environment has the biggest effect, e.g. 10*C, 25% payload, urban vs motorway driving is -47% range (-98 miles).
Camper vans are an interesting one and I think it depends on how you are going to use them.
And very much this. Next van (which is still years away) for me likely to be partial rather than full camper. My particular use scenario doesn't fit well with the current range estimations for medium electric vans, so if I was buying now it'd be hybrid rather than 100% electric. Unsurprisingly, motorway speeds and a van's brick-like aerodynamics don't help electric range - perfect drivetrain for the majority of vans doing urban/suburban driving only though.