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EV Adventure Van

CappyJax

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I have been thinking about how great an EV Adventure van would be. Especially if the company made the van with the features needed for an easy conversion. Here is what I think would really make a great van for conversion.

1. The entire body should be insulated from the factory. This seems like a good idea for any EV van as you will use less energy to heat and cool it for any use.

2. Air conditioning and heat pump for the whole van already installed. This would probably require two different systems with one for the cockpit and the other for the cargo area. You don't want to waste energy cooling or heating the cargo area while driving or vice versa. This might be an option anyway because if you have food delivery, they would want the same feature.

3. Prewired for 120V.

4. AWD

5. Adjustable ride height.

6. Flip up rear door would be great to create a roof for a tent extension.

7. Dual 240V charging ports. This would allow charging at 24kWs at RV parks which could completely charge a good size battery pack over night.

Now, if Rivian builds the RV themselves, then along with the above, I would like to see.

1. Rear lift bed that allows for a large cargo area when the bed is raised to the ceiling.

2. Full roof solar panels on top of a roof rack so long items like skis and snowboards can be stored. Even better if it had solar panels stacked that could be extended when parked to produce more power and act as an awning.

3. Double pane windows.

4. Built in leveling system.

5. Inside water tanks for four seasons considerations.


What are some features you would want to see in an EV adventure van?
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Nordic

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These guys are way ahead in van conversion segment. Will be interesting to see what they do with the Amazon van. I should say adventure van conversion.

https://www.outsidevan.com/
 

Pherdnut

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Well, unfortunately the Amazon van won't be available to anybody but Amazon. I'd be suprised to see Rivian make a sprinter-like van for their core brand but I could certainly see somebody buying skateboards to make a sprinter-style EV.
 
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CappyJax

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Well, unfortunately the Amazon van won't be available to anybody but Amazon. I'd be suprised to see Rivian make a sprinter-like van for their core brand but I could certainly see somebody buying skateboards to make a sprinter-style EV.
How do you know?
 

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CappyJax

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I think that was confirmed by somebody on this forum at one of the events (Seattle?).
That would be a horrible business decision. Why would any automotive company tool up and design a completely new vehicle for only 100,000 units when they could sell many times that number?
 

thrill

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That would be a horrible business decision. Why would any automotive company tool up and design a completely new vehicle for only 100,000 units when they could sell many times that number?
Because that's what the billion dollar investor and vehicle buyer wanted?
 
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CappyJax

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Because that's what the billion dollar investor and vehicle buyer wanted?
Ok, that would be a bad decision for him, because then his company has to bear the brunt of all the development costs. Why would he agree to such a poor business arrangement?
 

electruck

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Ok, that would be a bad decision for him, because then his company has to bear the brunt of all the development costs. Why would he agree to such a poor business arrangement?
It's actually not that bad because the skateboard architecture is shared by all of Rivian's products. It's really only the top hat that is custom new development and that truly is being heavily tailored to Amazon.
 

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Pherdnut

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I doubt they have 100k preorders, it's not like amazon isn't giving them a ton of money, and this is an excellent opportunity to demo how fast and effectively they can design and start building a fleet vehicle with their skateboard strategy. If Ford starts using their skateboard for any of their future fleet EVs, that could be massive. Also, knowing Bezos, he'd love to cut out the middlemen on shipping altogether. 100k may not be the end of it. But until they've ramped up to 250k cars a year, it's an awful lot for Rivian to chew on.
 

electruck

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I doubt they have 100k preorders...
The 100k was a reference to the number of delivery vans Amazon has ordered, not the number of R1 preorders.
 

Pherdnut

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The 100k was a reference to the number of delivery vans Amazon has ordered, not the number of R1 preorders.
Yes. I probably shouldn't have left it unsaid that it's nice to have an order for 100,000 delivery vans when you probably don't even have that many preorders yet. Not that closer to 50k preorders at 1k a pop wouldn't be a great start.
 
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CappyJax

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It's actually not that bad because the skateboard architecture is shared by all of Rivian's products. It's really only the top hat that is custom new development and that truly is being heavily tailored to Amazon.
It isn't going to be that easy. For every change in wheel base and expected load, you have to do a heck of a lot of engineering and testing. You aren't going to be able to use the R1T platform for the van. The wheel base is way too short. And I would hope the CVWR will be much higher in the van. It is going to need a payload in the 4,000lbs range to compete with the Sprinter and Transits it would be replacing. More than double the payload of the R1T.
 

electruck

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It isn't going to be that easy. For every change in wheel base and expected load, you have to do a heck of a lot of engineering and testing. You aren't going to be able to use the R1T platform for the van. The wheel base is way too short. And I would hope the CVWR will be much higher in the van. It is going to need a payload in the 4,000lbs range to compete with the Sprinter and Transits it would be replacing. More than double the payload of the R1T.
That's why I said the architecture is shared. Obviously skateboards are not one size fits all. Financially the approach is tremendously scalable - this is how Rivian has scored so much investment.
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