Question
Contemplating e-vanlife with the GM Brightdrop... Should I do it? Fueling with $.08/kWh electricity vs $5/gallon diesel and never having to do another oil change, fuel filter, transmission service, etc would be amazing!
272 miles of range ought to work for most of my trips and I feel like chargers are popping up all over the place... If I covered the entire roof in solar I could probably recoup ~20-30 miles / day in summertime. Maybe throw a generator in the back and use it as a range extender. There's so much room in this van!
Which charging stations are paying 8 cents per kWh? I don't doubt they exist but that seems pretty cheap.
The idea of an EV vanlife rig with a range extender definitely has some advantages. When you do have to make power your gas to electric is going to come out to roughly 5Kwh to the gallon. That is before factoring in maintenance costs to the generator. Which of course will require oil changes and fuel filter services.
Sorry- that's the off-peak price I pay at home here in Seattle. I recognize that public chargers will be significantly more expensive.
I imagine I would only need the range extender very infrequently, when I'm in remote parts of Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, etc. which I really only visit once or twice a year. Most of my road trips are south on I5 or east on I90 or SE on I84, where DCFCs and Tesla Superchargers are pretty easy to find.
Power is very inexpensive in Seattle, and you're talking about off-peak residential. That's the cheapest power in the US basically.
San Deigo on-peak summer power is like $0.86/kWh. Different world.
AAA reports that the U.S. average price at public commercial charging stations (across Level 1, 2, and 3/DC Fast Charging) is $0.365 per kWh as of September 5, 2025
On the road you can bring a travel charger and stay at an RV camp site for the night. I'm sure a lot of vanlifers use RV spots anyway, and it would be much cheaper to 'fill up' overnight there instead of a fast charger.
I’ve travelled across a huge chunk of the country with my van and my travel trailer, mostly staying at campgrounds. Nearly all of them have it listed right in the rules. Sure, some allow it. But you need to check first.
When my youngest kid finishes high school (another 4 years), I'm planning to sell or rent out the house and transition to full-time vanlife. For now I'm contemt with getting away when I can.
It's got a large enough roof you could hookup solar as mode of charging when on long trips. I've seen people do it with conversion vans, I'm sure you'll yield much better results with your roof space
He'd need a minimum of 1200W just to power a 120V EVSE that would put back 1.5-3 miles/hour depending on vehicle efficiency, and that's assuming perfect sun conditions.
True- the GM Ultium platform uses NCMA batteries that don't like to be charged to 100%. I'd only charge to 100% for long drives or if it would be needed to reach the next charging spot.
A less convenient (and potentially efficient solution) would be to sacrifice the sides of the van to solar panels on hinges. Use them like a canopy, have them fold out and up. A/C solutions include mounting in... unconventional locations like the side or rear doors. It'd look a mite bit sketchy, but if it works, it works, yea?
It's a roll up garage-style door so mounting an AC to the back isn't a viable option. Depending on how efficient the primary AC is, I could duct it back to the "living quarters".
They all come with that roll-up door. That being said, Grounded, an aftermarket upfitter in Michigan, has designed a pretty cool swing out door that replaces the garage-style door.
driven a few of these for work and i gotta say it's not too bad except for the speed limiter of 65 mph. if you can find the option to remove that limit i'd say go for it. the cab is big enough for a full grown adult to stand in so you can easily walk from one end to another without ducking at any point.
Yeah- it's much taller than my high roof Sprinter van! I could live with a 65 mph speed limiter. I plan to take one for a spin tomorrow and will see how much wind noise and road noise it generates at highway speeds. The faster you go the quicker you kill the battery, and it's not exactly an aerodynamic vehicle.
I'm 5'10 and would guesstimate I had nearly a foot of headroom above me. I'd lose an inch or two once the van is insulated, but it's still a lot roomier than my high roof Sprinter van.
Something to keep in mind is that whatever its range currently is as pictured (empty), will be reduced once the living space and other amenities are installed. More weight, less distance. Terrain will also play a roll, especially in the mountains. Cold weather..
Edit: To further extrapolate.
The forces acting on an electric vehicle (EV) include rolling resistance, aerodynamic drag, and gradient force, all of which are influenced by the vehicle's mass and the driving conditions. The rolling resistance force is proportional to the vehicle's mass and the coefficient of rolling resistance. This force opposes motion and is independent of speed,meaning heavier vehicles experience greater rolling resistance, requiring more energy to overcome.
Weight definitely impacts range. I tow a 750lb motorcycle on a 550lb aluminum trailer with my 2024 MY and it's about a 20% decrease in range and that is mostly country back roads. So slower than interstate speeds without a lot of stop and go.
Live the dream! If you can swing it, batter up! I like that you have a blank page to create your own build. Do it for the pioneer aspect. You'd be one of the first to electric/vanlife on that form factor.
If you don't have a charger to park at every day, like home or work. You aren't going to be paying 8¢/kW, you are going to be using public charges. The cheap public charges are 25¢/kW and the fast chargers go all the way up to 75¢/kW. I've even seen fast charges with demand pricing go all the way up to $1.10/kW and at that price, gas is cheaper. Factor in the limited range and limited charger availability in remote areas and it's just not the right choice for daily life on the road.
My youngest just started 9th grade, so I'll be mostly charging from home for the next 4 years, at least. It has enough range to get us to and from all of the ski hills we like to visit, and many of these ski areas now have chargers in case we need a little top up to get home.
You have a use case that is perfect for an EV RV. Look at Grounded RVs, they already make RVs with Bright Drop vans. Or build your own, the major problem is using the propulsion battery for house electricity voids your warranty. Another option would be to convert your current vacln with the Edison Motors kit. But that won't be available for at least 2 years.
I know Sam Shapiro from Grounded pretty well, and he's building some amazing (and !!expensive!!) vans. If I buy this van, I'm gonna see if I can convince him to sell me the rear door he's designed so that I can get rid of the roll-up garage-style door. Sam has also optimized using the house battery, which is charged by 1,000 watts of solar, to AC charge the traction battery.
Something to keep in mind (I went well down the path of a build in one of these before it didn't happen). They have a much lower available weight rating than most traditional vans. Even with the larger 11000 gvwr it leaves not as much weight available for a build. A quick AI enhanced response gives these minimums and maximums (ford transit for comparison)
The Brightdrop Zevo 600 with AWD and 173 kWh battery is rated for a payload of 3,130k lbs.
Even with water, a backup generator + fuel and and a decent size house battery bank, I can't imagine ever having a build that would exceed 3k lbs.
I have an EV and I love it as a daily driver. Where it fails is as a road trip vehicle. I’ll be the first to advocate for EVs but I think you found the one arena where I can’t recommend it.
I strongly agree with this. I have an F150 lightning. It’s potentially the best daily ever. The driving experience is tremendous. Especially in the summer. In RI our electricity isn’t cheap so it’s not any cheaper than driving a regular gas f150.
Its expensive and slow to road trip with. Even though there is an extensive network of chargers in the north east it’s still not always super convenient. You end up planning lots of your route around chargers.
In the winter it’s absolutely terrible. The truck is very surefooted in the snow. But…. The combination of the cold’s effect on the battery and running the heat effects the range considerably.
I literally went out and purchased a gasoline van after getting the lightning just to bring back the road trip….
100% my issues as well. I live in the upper Peninsula so our winters really can do a number on my batteries. It doesn’t bother me if I’m only going across town though. Once we went to Tennessee in February and got stuck in Green Bay because the charger was supposedly 24 hours but wasn’t. We pulled up with about 10 miles of charge in -2 degree weather only for the charger to not work and not enough charge to get us anywhere else. Thankfully we had a friend in town that came and got us so we didn’t freeze to death but it was scary.
I have done dozens of road trips in my EVs with no issues, all up and down the east coast originating in the southeast and as far as Tennessee and Ohio. No problems whatsoever.
You don’t feel you need to plan your trips around chargers? Also being in the south is much different than trying to road trips with a ev in the north. The winters cut your battery.
It gets still cold and I still travel in cold regions. It does have impact but some folks here are over-exaggerating it.
As long as you have access to the Tesla Supercharger network you have absolutely nothing to worry about. If you do not, then there is a bit of additional planning you’ll want to do but being that you’ll be vandwelling that really won’t be an issue either. Again, I assume you have Supercharger access in these vans.
You may have to plan if you decide to drive off the beaten path as well, but a generator solves that problem. Speaking of which, I don’t even think you need a generator unless you’re going into remote areas often.
Charging does not cost much and you can Supercharge most of the time, with some L2 charging along the way, much of which will either be free or cheap. People claiming it’ll be “more than gas” are out of their minds and have no actual idea about charging infrastructure and realistic costs. There are some ripoff chargers out there for sure, but literally nobody uses those.
You’re doing what I’ve considered doing, which I haven’t done because EV vans weren’t really accessible until maybe now, but at a high cost.
They can be few and far between particularly in th places you’ll want to go and then there is the charge time. So in my car I have a kilowatt gauge that tells me how much energy I’m burning. The estimated miles is pretty inaccurate. Like for example I just drove from the UP to Detroit, I can charge my battery to 80% before the charger starts to throttle the energy flow and it was colder out so after charging my mile range was at 180 but then I was going through the hills of northern Michigan and on the highway at 75mph, add to it that you need to stop when a charger was available rather then waiting until you are empty, I was stopping to charge every hour and ten minutes. I love my EV and I do think they are the future but you should know the reality before pinning your whole life to it.
Good and valuable insights. I'd probably keep my diesel Sprinter van for longer trips. The electric van would be more of a proof of concept vehicle, to see and test just what's possible. If it sucks, I'd probably sell it off, eat the loss and chalk it up to experience.
I think actually getting the full theoretical 20-30 miles per day with solar may be harder than you expect, you won't be able to tap into the battery directly you'll have to go through an intermediate battery system and then plug a level one charger into that
You'll actually need a seperate battery bank and inverter setup to charge the van from solar - can't wire directly to the main battery, and even with a perfect setup you'd be lucky to get 15 miles/day in optimal conditions.
I thought about this. Drive a short distance, probably 100 150 miles, bikes on the back.
Stop at a campsite for a few days, and set up a solar array.
Ride around the local area and relax. See the sight, no matter what.
When full, move on.
I think it is a very natural way of travelling, you are limited by distance so you are forced to enjoy the journey and not just how quickly you get to the next highlight....
I think E vans are cool as shit but I think in their current technology format they are best for weekenders who are going to ski resorts or barely off trail. The idea of having a warm EV van with all the amentias is amazing but that seems a very Seattle/Denver/Portland niche where you are within 150km of hills for ski and mtb. If you are further I just don't see the practicality here.
Well, I am a bit of a ski bum and regularly road trip from Seattle to Salt Lake City (830 miles), Sun Peaks (323 miles), Big Sky (680 miles), Lake Tahoe (735 miles), etc. I usually stop every couple of hours to stretch my legs, walk the dogs, use the facilities, grab something to eat / drink, so as long as there are chargers along the route, I don't think it would be a huge change from the way I travel in my diesel van.
If you could charge it off of a generator you bring with you that would be kinda dope for reducing range anxiety. No idea if it's even remotely feasible though
It's definitely possible- there are numerous 240V generators with continuous output of 7.2kW to 10kW and even higher, which can be used to AC charge EVs.
Sounds too good, because it is ;)
Basically, you can not charge and discharge a lithium-ion battery at the exact same time because current can only flow in one direction at any given moment.
Now in this setup I can see why it wouldn't work, but what if you rig the generator in series with the battery and motors? I'm sure the amount of work needed wouldnt be worth it but is there any reason it wouldnt work?
Recognize that there's no need to charge all the way up to 80% or whatever. You just need enough juice to get you to the nearest charger. Also, while boondocking, I'd capture as much solar as possible in the house battery bank, and AC charge that back into the traction battery. In the middle of summer, with 200 square feet of solar, that could be as much as 30-35 miles of range / day.
I think it's a great Idea
If we had them here I'll do it, although I prefer chassis cab so I can put an insulated box instead of trying to ineffectively insulate the metal box
Design a stacked solar panel mount so you can put double or triple the solar panels, use the lightweight flexible ones (there are 550w+ ones that came out lately, it's the holy grail, finally we can have 10 panels on a roof that weight like 4 regular glass panels, 15lbs per)
For campers EV is the way to go IMO
You save on buying a large lifepo4 battery, get a huge bank included in the price, you won't drive much so battery will last a long time
Can charge it yourself with solar if you double stack them
Far less mantainces
Don't need to worry about starting the engine every week so it won't die
Interestingly, the entire body of the Brightdrop is thin, lightweight composite over an aluminum skeleton. The nice thing about the cargo area is that it's all right angles, which will make framing and insulating it quite easy. My only concern is that the space between the roll-up rear door and the ceiling. I'm not sure a 1" thick foam board insulation will fit. Will measure tomorrow.
This was my thought process in 5-10 years for an off roading setup, probably once Toyota finally releases the next generation of hybrid or fully electric hiluxes
Ideally fully electric, but potentially hybrid, 4x4/AWD of some description
Ideally towing an off road camping trailer/caravan that has its own battery, ideally 1.5-2x the capacity of the car so it could charge that when needed with some left over
A nice stack of high output shade tolerant, flexible solar panels that I could probably mount 1 permanently, and have another few ready to lay out wherever
Pair all that with a petrol or diesel generator when needed
My theory was that I really could just slowly plod along remote trails for extended periods, even in a hybrid, just using up 90% of whatever electric driving range I have to move along the trail, post up for a week or two to recharge, then slowly plod along to the next spot. I would only really be limited by my storage capacity of food water and waste, emergency fuel reserves (more fuel if hybrid), and spare parts storage.
We're a Toyota owning family here in Oz. I have a Camry hybrid sedan, and we recently bought a Hiace (which I think isn't available in the US, don't ask me why, but will absolutely do us here for the time being) I had no idea Toyota was planning a hybrid van. That would be brilliant. Also, why aren't vans/houses/skyscrapers basically clad in solar panels??
Vans and vehicles aren't clad in solar panels because it just doesn't make sense to do so. The panels add weight and cost and they don't add enough range to be worth it, because of being shaded, not facing the right way, not angled right, and vehicles being so energy hungry.
Skyscrapers because they don't have much roof and up until recently putting them on the walls wouldn't have been viable, but even now I don't think owners would want the maintenance challenges.
Houses, in Australia, they basically are!
Ford do a Transit that's a plug-in hybrid, and an electric version now. The plug-in hybrid, in Europe, used to have no towing capability but it looks like it does here (or now) but the BEV still doesn't. It's a shame Toyota are behind the curve in electric vehicles and yeah hybrid options on their more commercial offerings.
I came here to say this is not practical but reading through the comments I think maybe it is? Also AI seems to think these are being heavily discounted. Go for it and report back!
I am really eager to see your build and how this works out for you! I am especially intrigued by some of the solar power suggestions. This thing is going to have some big batteries so I'd be worried about charging times, but there are folks on this sub who seem to know things who suggest it will be fine?
I'm doing this in NZ, with an LDV eDeliver 9 (I think they might be called a Maxis 9 over there) - picking it up next week. As I am expecting to only do fairly small <100km hops per day out of choice anyway so I figure why the hell not. If I was needing to travel hundreds of kms per day I'd think twice... but a quick look on google maps for "charging" shows a hell of a lot of places to charge and grab a coffee while I wait to top up from 20-80% in 30 minutes or less every 50kms or so. I think range anxiety is a thing of the past even in little old NZ
Nice and congrats! There are still large parts of North America that have little to no grid power, but for ~95% of my travels, I don't think it will be hard to find chargers. When I do go way off grid, I'll carry a 240V generator that can AC charge my van enough to get back to 'civilization' when needed.
I had this internal battle for my new work truck. Ill be picking up a base model 400 soon.
Price is hard to pass up. Im assuming the battery tech will be much better in 4 years though. Im only doing city driving but I think rv life is doable. Understanding it's limitations.
There is a brightdrop forum and a member achieved much longer battery life then whats advertised. Of course he was light on the pedal though.
Aye, Grounded has been around for a few years now, and they build beautiful vans on the Brightdrop platform, but they're also stupid expensive. Considering you can buy an empty Brightdrop 600 AWD for less than $70k, you're paying almost $100k just for the build. I'd much rather DIY, which I enjoy, and save some $$$ along the way.
There's probably some other things that will be unexpected, so as long as you know it isn't going to be pure benefit no drawback, go for it. Probably those things will be solvable and it'd be neat to be one of the first wave working on it
See if you can put solar on the roof and and charge the car with that. You'll probably only get a few miles range per day of charging but if you don't move much or park in one place for awhile you'll get free range. Also see if you can run all your appliances inside off electricity and then you won't need any gas at all.
Interesting- the Brightdrop is built on the GM Ultium battery platform, which I'm pretty sure includes fairly robust thermal management to cool the batteries in summer and warm them in winter and precondition before charging. The funny thing is, at the Chevy dealer I visited today, no one on the sales staff knows anything about this van! They've received zero training on it!
Consider looking at used panels somewhere like SanTanSolar if you’re boon docking you could probably get decent range about the time you want more water.
I would probably add a dual fuel generator of significance and figure out how to charge the vehicle with it. Its nice to have anyway for van life and It’s going to be a backup you will need with any EV van in the western USA on the remote areas you will be exploring.
I also don’t love the cargo specific barrier between cab and living space. Seems like from photos I’ve seen you can’t do swivel front seats. Is it possible to remove those two walls behind seats?
For longer trips where charging might not be available, I definitely plan to throw a generator in the back.
I actually like the bulkhead with locking door- as a commercial cargo van, it means the cargo area is quite secure. One would have to break through that bulkhead door or the sturdy garage-style door on the back to get into the "living quarters".
If you mostly take trips from home, it would be killer. You’d never have to gas up before a trip!! If you took lots of extended trips, and didn’t return home after a weekend, it would suck. We have a daily driver EV, and love it for town stuff. But charging while out sucks big time.
As someone working towards moving onto BLM land with a van setup this intrigues me. Their are too many current shortcomings for an all electric van setup to currently be practical for my goals, but I hope one day it is. Please keep us updated with some of the boring hard facts, I'm hoping more people take stuff like this out so we can get more information.
You’ll pay way more than that to charge this. Sure, your home off peak, but that’s not where you charge when traveling, and this van is meant to travel.
Just remember 270 miles really means 200 miles. Been driving EVs for the past 5 years and you may have some days driving slow not running ac or heat where your mileage looks pretty good, but any driving outside of 55mph, running auxiliaries, elevation gains all consume more battery.
Nevertheless I love EVs and encourage the thought! I think it would be a cool concept! Especially if we could get some ranges closer to 350-400miles.
I have a Mercedes sprinter 144 awd. Love the range and freedom of just pulling into a gas station. The more adventuring you do the harder it may be to find a spot to charge. But these new ev box trucks look pretty awesome for conversion.
I've got a 2021 Sprinter 4x4 that I mostly love. Really, the only things I don't love are the costs of the A and B services and the cost of fuel... I'm thinking I would keep the Sprinter for the occasional long road trip, and use the electric van mostly for local adventures in the PNW where diesel is stupid expensive, but electricity is really cheap. I drive down to California 2-3 times per year. That would be a pain in an electric van with the added time it would take to charge along the way. Same for visiting family in Colorado.
If you can find a shopping center with free level 2 charging (they're everywhere) you effectively have no operating costs other than occasional maintenance and your repayments, no need to worry about overnight heat in winter, or cooling in summer, or expensive auxiliary power systems (most E-Vans have 1-2 full power wall outlets, 240V 15A in Australia)
You also don't need to break stealth by covering it in solar panels, so nobody will even know you're living in it
Do not buy this if you think either the generator or the solar panels will be a contributor to your range.
Maybe the solar panels make sense for aux power, but lugging a generator filled with gas in your living space for the potential that one day you make a bad plan will cost you more in range than it will ever give you back.
If there's enough space between the roof and the roll up door, I'd just insulate the whole box in 1" thick polyiso foam board. Cheap and R-value of 4-6. I could also look into replacing the roll up door with a door or doors on hinges.
I don’t think electric is a good fit for van life. The largest thing that makes electric work well is having a home base to charge it. Charging elsewhere at least around me is .20-.60/kWh
Keep in mind the age of the battery and how that may affect its resale value and also the price to replace the battery when the time comes, apparently upwards of several thousand. Also, as the battery ages, the vehicles total mileage from a full charge may drop.
How long do they take to charge? What is the DIY repairability of these things?
Do they lock you out from chargers if you try to repair them yourself like Teslas do?
I don’t know about where you live but there are a grand total of zero mechanics who work on electric vehicles anywhere near where I live so you have to pay stealership rates to get them worked on and travel far to do it. All worth considering.
I've liked the Brightdrops from the git. My understanding is that they aren't selling well at all. My guess is that it's price point, and GM getting a bit overzealous with production. If cash suddenly fell out of the sky on me, I'd go get one today.
The biggest reason they aren't selling is that GM commercial truck dealers have received zero training on these vehicles and have no idea how to pitch them to fleet customers. I work in the commercial EV industry- the Ford e-Transit is selling very well because it's the exact same form factor as the gasoline transit, meaning fleets that already have Transits can add e-transits without disrupting their operations.
I'd look up the cost to charge it and how long the charge takes plus "real life range not claimed"..
I remember running into a vanlife guy up in SD I believe it was who had a full size Ford electric van that I had no idea they even made. He was just doing a trip that was like 500 miles or so and it was taking him days to do it due to range and charging times..
I'm not against electric but I dunno about these unless you never leave a city. I did take notice of them though.
Days? The charge rate on the Brightdrop is only 120 kW, but that still means you'd add over a hundred miles of range in less than an hour at any Tesla supercharger... My dogs will be so happy to have these long breaks! It's gonna be a more mellow way to travel, that's for sure. But long distance gas n go driving kinda sucks imo.
Edit: typo
Also on the highway any thought of a decent speed will drain your battery. You lose at least 2 miles of range for every mile you drive. If you need heating or AC ... well, you get the point. Solar panels ok but the generator ... might as well get a diesel van.
I know that public chargers are a lot more expensive. My primary charging location for the next few years will be at home where I currently enjoy an amazing $.08 kWh off peak rate. I could also take advantage of the state parks, as well as many RV sites that offer 30 or 50 amp power to slow charge overnight. Even level 1 would add a decent charge if dwell time is long enough. (I recognize that some places expressly forbid EV charging, but I wonder how they monitor and enforce that?)
That's a good rate for home. Just make sure that you don't have sneaky fees. Where I am, I have 8c kWh too, but if I use more power, my "transmission fee" and my "administration fee" and half a dozen other fees all go up. So I think my actual electricity rate, despite the stated 8c kWh rate, is closer to 30c kWh. Make sure you know how your bill will change if you start sucking hundreds of kWh out of the wall at home too. Would hate you to see a bill several times bigger than you meant to see.
Range will be the biggest issue. 285 is the longest EPA range. With passenger vehicles generally seeing about 13% less. Being a blocky van, solar on the roof AND constantly hauling around the weight of a van build, your range will be seriously impacted. And then there is cold weather range drop to consider. It can be as much as a 40% hit.
For van life, I just don't think EV vans are quite near where they need to be. Close. But not quite.
MSRP is ~$81k for the AWD with the biggest battery (173 kWh). GM has them discounted by $21,500. Dealers are adding additional discounts. If I buy through Costco Auto, that takes another $3k off. Basically, I'm looking at between $57k - $60k for a brand new AWD Brightdrop Zevo 600. Compared to AWD high roof, long wheel base Sprinters or Transits, I think it's a pretty good deal.
If you're going to wrap it at your own expense, I'd just invent a fake business for shits and giggles with a phone number on the side that doesn't go anywhere.
You would right now, but in a year or two I dont think they would be too noticeable. The new Amazon vans looked crazy when they first came out but now I dont even notice them
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u/nanneryeeter 3d ago
Which charging stations are paying 8 cents per kWh? I don't doubt they exist but that seems pretty cheap.
The idea of an EV vanlife rig with a range extender definitely has some advantages. When you do have to make power your gas to electric is going to come out to roughly 5Kwh to the gallon. That is before factoring in maintenance costs to the generator. Which of course will require oil changes and fuel filter services.