Nissan Launches All-Electric Camper Van

Unfortunately, you'll need to live in Spain to buy one.

I've lived and worked in the United States long enough to anticipate two comments about the all-electric pop-up camper van I'm about to write about:

1) Why are they not available here?
2) Never mind, I don't want one because the range isn't big enough.

In Spain, however, consumers can now apparently get their hands on a pop-up camper van that's based on a conversion of the e-NV200 delivery vehicle. While some blogs appear to be talking about two different electric campers, the best I can make out using my rudimentary Spanish and Google Translate is that only one of the new vehicles being released is electric.

Still, given that Lloyd—not usually a fan of the internal combustion engine—appears to be hankering after a diesel-powered VW camper, I personally welcome any foray into electrification for what appears to be a growing interest in/revival of pop-up campers and microbuses in general.

According to the Nissan press release, the e-NV200 camper can be ordered and customized from any Nissan dealer in Spain. And while I've already anticipated scorn on this side of the Atlantic for a 40kWh battery and 124 miles of range, I actually could see this being quite popular in European markets. Where I grew up, for example, in South West England, I could take a van like this to most of the South West coast, and a large chunk of Wales, and a single fast charge would open up most of the South of the country.

Yes, this wouldn't be practical for truly long distance road trips; but man, you could have some fun, low carbon adventures in it.

No word on pricing in the press materials. It's clearly not a mass market effort yet. But I expect to see more such vehicles to come, especially once the new electric VW microbus comes on the market.