Looking into getting an electric van/campervan (EV) - anyone got any tips?

Great question, @Jeffus!

As a micro campervan owner too - I’d love to learn more about the prospect of going electric. Know we’ve got plenty of electric vehicle (EV) owners here who should be able to give some general advice in the realities of living with an EV. If you haven’t already seen it I’d really recommend @Jequinlan’s great blog about holidaying with an EV - 

So EV owners any thought on the electric vans on the market currently or good tips to consider when researching the options? - @PeterR1947, @MrPuds, @sylm_2000, @D10hul, @Transparent, @NinjaGeek, @Gingernut49, @juliamc, @ArundaleP, @jp1, @RobL , @Peetee, @tesla_model_3

Go for the highest spec you can if you need the range. I have a 2019 Nissan Leaf 40kw Tekna which is brilliant for me as I'm a volunteer driver and usually just potter around locally so 160 miles is fine and I only need to charge it (at home) once a week. I just visited my sister in the New Forest at the weekend and charged at Winchester Services through Ecoserve and it was free. 😀

LEVC have one https://www.levc.com/corporate/news/ecamper/, there are a few companies  that convert ENV200’s https://www.pioneercampervans.co.uk/car-model/nissan-e-nv200/, I think most people are waiting for VW to release the ID Camper, and the Arrival camper van could also be compelling but there are some other startups with similar ideas

Four years into motorhome ownership. After owning my 24 and 40 LEAF I said I’d never buy another ICE.  So no motorhome upgrade until there is viable EV option

Thanks. Enjoyed reading about the camping trip, @Jequinlan. Our alternative plan is to buy an electric car and a tent but we would rather get a micro campervan so we can use all year round. We have camped at New Year in the past. 

The camping and caravan club still let EVs charge up on pitches with electric hookup for no extra cost. You just pay the standard price for the electric pitch. Of course the max KW per hour would be low but it may help get a bit of charge, particularly if leaving the EV unused for a couple of days? Do EVs allow you to limit the KW you draw? Am not sure how long the club will continue with this policy on their sites. 

Thanks, @Gingernut49. Am thinking 160 miles real world capacity may be fine for us. I suspect we may have to compromise with the extra weight of a camper. 

However due to the capital cost of an EV, particularly a camper, i would really like one that i would have at least some comfort it might last 20 years like our current van. I wonder if this is realistic with batteries and if so how high a battery capacity i should go for to allow for degradation over time realistically? Perhaps that is a how long is a piece of string question. Perhaps my thought of a 20 year old EV is not realistic? Are there any plans to swap out batteries in older EVs?

@jp1, I do like the Nissan, this one is lovely. We have looked at similar sized campers in the past. Would be very high spec and bigger compared to our current van... That is about as big as we would want to go ideally as we only have one vehicle. 

Am hoping the choice and costs will come down quickly as more small commercial vans come on the market. We may end up part converting a basic EV small van and getting help for the more difficult stuff if the prices and choices are an issue. 

@Maverick, Yep. We would not swap our micro  camper for another ICE camper. 

We have tickets for Glastonbury next year and hope to swap to something else after that depending what is on the market. 

Very jealous to hear of your Glastonbury tickets, @Jeffus (2022 is going to be a BIG one!)

Just added a few tags to your comments so the original posters will get an email notification so they don’t miss your great replies (you can do this by using the @ symbol followed by their username).

Also love the idea of doing a conversion of an existing small EV van (looks like this might be the quicker option) - I’ve got a (very old and sadly diesel) converted VW caddy which is the perfect size - wonder what current EV vans could work for a conversion 

Well, in theory at least… Almost any van could be converted to a campervan. Hey, I’ve even heard of the odd Reliant Robin being converted into a mini-caravan once or twice!

Since I don’t think you’d need to touch the chassis or any of the important stuff under the bonnet, you (hopefully!) wouldn’t get bogged down in 50 years of red tape, an SVA Test (which makes an MOT Test look like a walk in the park in comparison!), DVLA approval or any of that other messy paperwork that’s involved with getting a totally new vehicle approved for use on the road. After all, that’s the same hack that Top Gear/Grand Tour has used for years to legally workaround this issue.

If you simply re-use the chassis from an existing vehicle that’s already been approved (such as an old Land Rover), some kind of legal magic allows your modified vehicle to “inherit” the approval of the original vehicle - but I would definitely recommend doing your research and double checking anyway, just to be safe. And to be fair, there’s no harm in going through the full paperwork and proper processes anyway I guess.

But if you’re not going anywhere near the chassis, engine, battery, electronics, any important mechanical stuff or anything safety related... Then I guess you could potentially do a conversion by just modifying the bodywork and fitting the van with what you want to put in your campervan conversion.

I’ve heard of quite a few people who’ve managed to convert regular ICE vans into campervans before. So I would guess doing the same thing for an EV van would be somewhat similar?

Oh, and if you consider the fact that the Mercedes-Benz V-Class (formerly known as the Mercedes-Benz Viano) is basically a car that’s based on the Vito and Sprinter chassis, you can probably see what I mean by this. Sure, it’s an ICE rather than an EV, but you can probably see the idea that Mercedes were going for (plus, it’s absolutely huge with tons of space!).

In some ways, if they did an EV version of the V-Class, you could potentially use that as a campervan. I can definitely say that there have been Vito Campervans in the past for example! I’m not sure if those were officially a thing that Mercedes did directly, or if they were conversions, but it was definitely possible.