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.