Is anyone buying?

Alkers

We're in the market for a new van in the next year or so - campervan as opposed to motorhome but what are people's thoughts about upcoming ICE bans etc.

Does it make any sense to be spending money on an ICE van in the near future?

There's not many viable ev camper alternatives as of yet. Have my eye on one German outfit converting vans but other than that everything is insanely priced.

How does it work importing a second hand camper from Germany btw, would it being an EV (second hand) make any difference?

Del2005

They are banning the sales of new ICE cars, they aren't banning the driving of them. There'll be plenty of ICE cars on the roads for the next 10 to 15 years so don't worry about infrastructure. The only issue could be more and more cities are introducing Low Emissions Zones, but do you really want to drive a large vehicle into an unknown city while most likely sitting on the wrong side?

IMO there's no BEV van that's suitable for campers at the moment. Most vans are only for city use and have limited range. Have you seen any EV campers for sale in Germany?

Alkers

https://flowcamper.de/elektro-flow

Have our eyes on one of these but it starts from 80k and that's for a second hand van conveyed to EV, 72kWh battery so should be ballpark 300km range which would probably do us. Problem is it that they don't fast charge so you can't top up en route, it's an overnight charge to top up again so that probably rules them out for us, but it's a step in the right direction.

I just don't want to spend 50k on something next year which is obsolete and has zero trade in value on ten years

CJhaughey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119698682#Comment_119698682

Those look very poor. I wouldn't worry about getting an EV camper. its a non-issue.

Alkers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119699677#Comment_119699677

Where would you be looking?

CJhaughey

If you want a small van then I think Germany in a month or two is best.

I got mine in 2017 around Paddy's day and drove it back with a buddy.

Alkers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119699804#Comment_119699804

And then 13.3% of a mystery amount on import? How did revenue valuation compare to purchase price?

What sites in Germany did you browse on? Did you swap out your Irish insurance on purchase? Did you buy private or from a dealer? Anything else to look out for?

Sorry for all the questions, any help much appreciated!

CJhaughey

I bought private, it was 2 yr old and under 20k km.

I looked at Mobile.de. Had a bit of hassle transferring the money across, banks only deal up to a certain amount and lots of questions were being asked by Transfermate.

Eventually they transferred it but by then it was too late to do a temporary plate and insurance.

Seller owned a taxi company and was happy enough to let me drive it back on his plate and his insurance.

Once I got it back here I was able to get it insured by Stuarts on the German plates and then VRT'd.

The VRT was about 7k I think which I didn't find too offensive.

Mefistofelino

EV drivetrains (including battery) are typically heavier than the ICE equivalent. The difference can be in the order of 200+ kg, and more if you are looking for reasonable range. (Some of the current e-vans have lighter battery options that have real world ranges of as little as 120km). The issue is that if you are limited to maximum allowable mass of 3500kg (B licence), losing 200+ kg of payload can be significant. A manufactured (rather than self-built) van might have a payload of 500 - 600kg in the diesel version. A battery version would halve that.

One manufacturer (Buerstner?) did show a motorhome with an auxilliary electric drive for the back wheels (with a conventional ICE drive train up front) but it was a larger capacity chassis - not a van.

zg3409

The price of batteries should come down and the capacity should come up. Early adopter EV vans may have less range than models in 5 or 10 years. Those battery sizes used today are relatively small and may be an issue if travelling across say France in terms of number of stops to recharge. If going Ireland only it would be less of an issue.

In terms of bang for buck a used non EV van will be better value. It will probably have less depreciation.

It depends on your needs but I doubt there would be much fuel savings going EV versus the premium price.

As an EV car driver myself I would wait 5 or 10 years before getting an EV camper.