British Firm Turns Nissan e-NV200 Electric Van Into Cosy, Family-Friendly Camper Van (1 Viewer)

ShiftZZ

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As anyone who has ventured off the beaten track in an electric vehicle will tell you, camp sites and RV parks are the ideal place to find an emergency charge if there are no official public charging stations nearby. And while RV parks won’t necessarily charge your car as quickly as say a rapid charging station might, they’re a great place to stop off for the night if you’re making a multi-day trip in your electric car and need somewhere cheap to stay that also happens to have power to hand.


Fancy an all-electric camper van? Now you can, thanks to Hillside Leisure in the UK. (Photo: Hillside Leisure)

So far, if you’ve wanted to make use of RV parks to charge your car, you’ve had to be content with camping outside in a tent or perhaps rigging up some form of make-shift bed inside your car, but now a company from the UK has taken Nissan’s all-electric e-NV200 van and turned it into a family-friendly camper van, complete with bedding for up to four — and it will unveil it tomorrow at the Motorhome & Caravan Show 2014 at the NEC exhibition centre in Birmingham, UK.

Enter Hillside Leisure, a specialist campervan conversion company from Derby, who have taken Nissan’s work-focused e-NV200 electric van and given it the custom micro camper van treatment, complete with pop-up roof, twin-hob gas stove, 39-litre refrigerator, on-board water tank and low-voltage LED lighting.


Like the rest of its range, the DalburyE can accommodate up to four people: two below, two above.

For those who don’t know, a campervan is usually based on a small to medium-sized commercial vehicle or minivan, and is a little like a shrunken-down recreational vehicle. Smaller than U.S. RVs, most modern European camper vans still follow the same design ethos set out by the original VW microbus, offering basic accommodation, cooking and cleaning. Small enough to be driven on a conventional driving license, camper vans offer a lot of the practicalities of RV or caravanning, but without the hassle of a larger vehicle or towing. What’s more, they fit into most standard car parking spaces.

Being based on the Nissan e-NV200 electric van, the all-electric camper — called the DalburyE — features the same 24 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack and 5 year, 60,000 mile warranty as the e-NV200. It also comes with a 3 kilowatt on-board charger as standard, along with a faster optional 6 kilowatt charger and CHAdeMO DC quick charge capability. And with many of the UK’s popular holiday routes now serviced by DC quick charging stations, it doesn’t take too much imagination to see how anyone with the DalburyE could leave their house at lunchtime, stopping off at a couple of DC quick-chargers en-route, before arriving at their first camp-site before dusk.

All without burning a single drop of gasoline.


There’s even a kitchen sink, refrigerator and stove.

Hillside Leisure quotes a range of 106 miles for the DalburyE, with an electronically-limited top-speed of 76 mph. That’s the same figures quoted by Nissan on the NEDC test cycle, and given the NEDC’s optimistic range figures, we’d suggest you’d need to look for recharging every 70-80 miles en-route if you wanted your family break to be as low-stress as possible.

With the official unveiling due tomorrow, there’s no official word on price, but given the company’s non-electric Dalbury range — based on the petrol NV200 — starts at £23,995, we’re thinking the all-electric will be somewhere between £32,000 and £40,000, depending on the trim levels specified.

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A range of 106 miles & between £32,000 and £40,000. I cant see them selling many!!! Besides Burstner Owners wanting to upgrade.,
 
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I wouldn't have even risked the first part of my recent weekend trip, from Bridgend -> Hereford C&CC club site, with that range limit, particularly in the winter. Your driving each day would end after about 2 hours unless you could find a fast charger :(

And if you did make it to a site, would the EHU be enough to fully charge the vehicle battery overnight, let alone top-up the leisure battery at the same time? What cables would you need, and would the site owners let you charge the van?
 

Tootles

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I once had the great misfortune to own a Romahome.....And, seeing that bed made me remember....To get that bed, you have to unload everything outside, just to make it up.......:( On a wet night......
Apart from that, the jury is out for me on electric vehicles, because at the end of the day, battery technology hasn't yet caught up with manufacturers aspirations.......

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Feb 4, 2010
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I once had the great misfortune to own a Romahome.....And, seeing that bed made me remember....To get that bed, you have to unload everything outside, just to make it up.......:( On a wet night......

Hey...Romahomes are OK. And if you think the bed set-up in that or the NV200 is tight, you should see mine. You just need planning, patience...and a sense of humour when it all goes wrong and you can't move for bedding, porta-pottys and oil-filled radiators :rolleyes:
 

Puddleduck

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Not enough range and too small for me. But once the battery technology has improved then who knows?
 

Bertie Bassett

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I once had the great misfortune to own a Romahome.....And, seeing that bed made me remember....To get that bed, you have to unload everything outside, just to make it up.......:( On a wet night......
Apart from that, the jury is out for me on electric vehicles, because at the end of the day, battery technology hasn't yet caught up with manufacturers aspirations.......

Oi Toots, a Romahome was our first van on an 1125cc Citroen Petrol:D. It was brilliant but we were young (relatively) and we could contort ourselves into the required shape to make everything work. But that little van gave us great pleasure for a number of years(y) In France every time we stopped loads of French people clambered all over it and were amazed! (Got us loads of invitations................some of which we didn't take up:sneaky:)

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Tootles

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Oi Toots, a Romahome was our first van on an 1125cc Citroen Petrol:D. It was brilliant but we were young (relatively) and we could contort ourselves into the required shape to make everything work. But that little van gave us great pleasure for a number of years(y) In France every time we stopped loads of French people clambered all over it and were amazed! (Got us loads of invitations................some of which we didn't take up:sneaky:)

I didn't think they made them in the 1940's........:)(y)
 

Bertie Bassett

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I didn't think they made them in the 1940's........:)(y)


There were rows of them with the bonnets up on the road into Dunkirk...................you had to be there mate it was grim!:cry:
 
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Is the quoted range when not using lights and heating?.
Not yet convinced by battery powered vehicles when you take into account range before having to find charging point and also cost of replacing batteries which could be 3 - 5 years or less. Think how long leisure batteries last and cost.

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gaja

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Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, I know it is not considered polite, but this was just the thing I was googling for.

I've been driving EVs for a little while, but am new to the camping world. We drove our Nissan leaf 1500 miles last summer, and when it died we decided to try the NV200, to see if we could transform it to a campervan without reducing the range too much. I'm here looking for good ideas to outfit it as simply and low weight as possible.

Based on my experience with EVs, the range of 100 miles is not realistic. Driving it as a normal van, without too heavy a load, I expect to get around 80 miles on a normal day. The old leaf had a realistic range of 60, so for us 80 is an improvement. But to go camping, we should not go much below that before the range anxiety kicks in. For the charging part; as long as you pay, you normally are allowed to charge most places. I've charged at museums, libraries, camping places, hotels, private homes, town halls, etc. At camp grounds, you usually have access to 16-20 A. That is a charging speed of 3-4.5 kW/h, and will get you a full battery in 5-8 hours if you are completely empty. The NV200 can charge up to 6.6 kW, that means 0-100 in less than 4 hours.

Lights are LED, and wipers don't really draw a lot of energy. The main battery drain is heat. I would prefer to avoid fossil fuels, but apparently an electric heater is costly and not very efficient? I would love to be able to run that on a small solar/wind system (with battery), but don't know if that is realistic?

The dream is to take the boat to Iceland and travel the ring road to Reykjavik this summer.
 

jonandshell

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How will you fit a family in an NV200?

They are tiny!

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