RVEX Electric Camper Van 3-Day Real World Test Drive & Review

0:07 Boom. Welcome back to the channel. I'm Hank Strange. This is Stranger Palooa. This is Zach Epers of Coachman Class A. >> Yep. Yep. >> How you doing, Zach? >> Good. How are you doing? >> Good. Right behind us is the RVX. I think you debuted this at open house. Yeah, just uh debuted it to our dealers

0:26 at open house and hoped to introduce it to the the public um at the Tampa Super Show in January of 26. You know, we didn't let a lot of people know what we were doing and um kind of intentionally. We had a vision and and um you know, we wanted to have a completed product before we let everyone know kind of what

0:44 we were doing. And the feedback from our dealer partners was really really good. So yeah, had a lot of dealers want to want to carry the product, want to pick up the product. We're going to keep the dealer body pretty small um initially because our production is going to be very limited initially.

0:58 >> So, this is a GM Bright Drop 600. >> Yep. Chevy GM. Um and this is we we chose the 600. They make this in a 400 600 version. We did the 600 with the larger GVWR which is 11,000 and then the extended battery uh pack. So, >> so this does about 270 miles. >> Yep. Yep. I think if you go to their

1:19 website, they advertise 274 is what they advertise and and that's about what we've been getting when we've been driving it. >> And it's also all-wheel drive. >> Allwheel drive. >> You know, why did GM come to you guys? >> We're always looking at opportunities. And when we saw this chassis, for the

1:34 cost of the chassis, for the range of the chassis, for some [clears throat] of the features of the chassis, we thought, hey, this this is the first battery chassis that we've seen, electric chassis that we've seen where we think it's a viable product. It makes sense. Yeah. And what I mean by that is a lot

1:47 of things that have been introduced before now the range is you know right around 100 150 miles. Um we we have always looked for something I would say at least 250. You know 250 that's about what the average person does in a day in a motor home. So this will allow you to go from one campsite to the next. When

2:02 you get to that campsite if you have 50 amp charging you can you know charge your house charge your chassis at the same time. >> So that's what we've got going on here. Anyone wants to see. So it has a cassette right there. I'll get in depth with all of this. Uh, this looks like your spray ports.

2:16 >> Yep. So, if you want to hook up an out, we got a little connection for an outside shower right there. >> This, I think, is your city >> city water connection. >> City link. And then we've got this is how you would charge it at a supercharger. We'll do that and test it out. And then this is how you charge the

2:30 um the house battery cuz this is your chassis make it move battery. >> Yeah. So, this is your plug in just charge your house. And then what we did here, that's your connection that allows you to charge your house and chassis at the same time. >> It's starting to rain. You want to go

2:43 in? >> Yes. Let's Let's jump in here. [laughter] >> You want to go from the front or back or? >> Yeah, let's uh start up front. Okay. >> I think you were telling me this door is powered. Not on the driver's side, though. Right. >> So, this door is a power door. >> I'll go in right after you.

2:56 >> Very nice. Is there a button here to close it? >> The key fob has a button. >> I've got it in my pocket. I'll close it. >> Just manually close it. Yep. >> There you go. We're in. [laughter] >> So, since the show we did add um armrests here. >> Oh, okay. Now, I think Lola was asking

3:10 about this. There is a height difference in these two seats. There's not really a lot you can do about that right now. >> No. And a lot of it's because of the airbag. So, here you do have an airbag uh right here through GM. Um and then on your driver's seat, you're going to have airbag down here, but also one right

3:24 here. So, because of, you know, those safety features, which are great safety features. Yeah. >> Um >> you want that. >> Yeah, you want that. But there's not a lot we can do with the seat height and we, you know, unfortunately right now cannot add armrest here because of the where the airbag is right here. When I

3:39 actually do the handoff here and I drive this, I'll show you guys. I'll set up some cameras, but lots of good storage. This is my camera bag up here. So, there's even more storage up here. Up there, uh, a lot there's like >> Yeah. Up top there's more storage. Yeah. >> Yeah. There's cup holders. Yeah. You've

3:54 got storage here. Speakers. I'll check those out and see how those that all comes standard with it, right? Even storage down here. >> Yeah. Only thing we did in the chassis, we reid the It's fabric. We did, you know, a higherend vinyl on this chair. We added a completely new chair and base

4:11 on the uh passenger seat here. >> So, you did make this a little bit more comfortable than the standard you would get because typically these are delivery vans and work vans so no one would be sitting here. >> Yep. And then we did add um you know some vinyl panels uh foam pack on on

4:26 your sliding doors and did uh some paint work at the bottom too. >> Okay. Right here. So, is there insulation in here? >> There is. Yep. Some insulation in We did about 3 in of insulation on the sides and in the roof to give you, you know, to make this a lot quieter than than what it would be if you got it straight

4:42 from GN. >> Absolutely. Okay. So, we're going to work our way back. You've got what we would call in the RV world. I don't know. In class A, if you call this a fullsize fridge in class B and vans, >> I would say as you're going to go French double door and in class Yeah. And the smaller motor home. So,

5:00 >> yeah. But you build bigger than this. So, >> typically. Yeah. So, we have a, you know, a nice size refrigerator here for the overall length, 24 ft. >> You have the convection air fryer, microwave here. >> Nice pull out drawers here. >> Cool. >> Pull out drawers here. >> So, a lot of the storage is right up

5:16 front here. I see even over here. >> Yep. >> You know, nice large >> bar here. Removable shelf here. >> This is a ton of storage just forward, I think. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Drawer there. Here's your fuse box. Pull out here. Again, I really love these. in the >> in this area because

5:35 >> there you go. We've got some pots and pans already in there. >> Some pots and pans. You do have a lock here. Uh this is your EcoFlow system which you can get into that. But I mean right now you can kind of see we're getting uh 40 watts from of solar right now. It's you know it's raining outside

5:51 so we're not getting a lot of very cloudy. Um >> oh so this is um this tells you how long you could run what we're running right now. So it says 5 days. We're we're basically even right now. So, you can see we're getting 40 watts solar in. We're, you know, with just our lights on, we're using about 40 watts around

6:08 there. >> There's a little bit of confusion with people. There's one battery that runs the chassis. Yep. >> And right now, you just have that set up for when you're driving, where you're going, right? So, the actual house side of this does not feed off of the Bright Drops battery at this point.

6:23 >> Yeah. So, we did a 5,000 watt inverter. Standard's going to be a 500 amp battery and then there's an option to add a second 500 amp battery. So, this one just has the one 500 in it. You will have the option to add another 500 amp hour battery to double that house. >> So, the 500 amp hours in here right now,

6:41 the only way to charge that up is at a 50 amp or you can use an adapter 30 >> Yep. >> at a campground. And then the solar panels you have on the roof, what do you have? >> 1,000 watts of solar. So, what's nice is, you know, on a sunny day, you could run this AC. Um, and if you're running

6:58 it on low, you could, you know, your solar is going to bring in about 600 watts of solar, battery power, I should say. And this is, you know, with running some lights and your AC, that's about what you're going to be >> I'll run all of that stuff probably. I'll be using heat. >> Yeah, it's a little chilly. [laughter]

7:14 So, but it's the same way. The heat pump actually consumes the same amount as your about as an AC >> as an AC would because it's it's the exact same process. It just reverses. So that's why the the wattage uses is is about the same. >> Okay, cool. Let's take a look at the bathroom here as we go back. Uh side

7:30 bath here. I think you said you've got magnets holding. >> So there's your cassette toilet. You do have a shower curtain here. >> Sink in there. Mirror. >> And then layoutwise right now you're not planning a different floor plan. So, for example, you're not planning rare baths. >> No, what we really wanted to do is

7:46 utilize the back. Um, so when you open this up, you know, if you want to bring bikes in here, you want to bring kayaks, uh, skis, you know, stuff like that. >> We really want to use the utilize that storage in the back. And then, you know, with the big windows, the big window here, you know, you can have six people

8:02 sitting here comfortably hanging out. Um, you do have the, you know, the table here as well. Yeah. So, you know, for the for kind of the functionality that we we kind of thought that a lot of people would be using this for, we think we maximize that the ability to entertain, the ability to use it for

8:19 storage, and then still have the ability to sleep as well. So, you know, depending on feedback and everything like that, we're, you know, go to work on that second floor plan, but we're trying to kind of see, you know, what consumers tell us, what they want, what they don't want,

8:32 >> what we find out, you know, based on using it, and then and then going from there. Yeah, I think you're going a good direction here. I know something that you've done differently um is this would normally be like a rollup door. So, I have seen videos of people who plan to self um convert these to RVs and they're

8:52 just going to use those doors, but you guys have the resources to do something with this. >> Yeah, we you know, the rollup door, we actually really wanted to use that initially and we even took a rollup door, put all glass in there. That's, you know, we thought it'd be really cool

9:04 to have a a glass just like you would, you know, house. You have the glass garage door. You can see out. It's really easy [clears throat] to put it up, use it for storage. What we didn't like about it is just how noisy it was. So, when you're going down the road, it rattled a lot more. Also, the

9:17 functionality of it, um, there's two locks on it, um, which is a good safety feature, but it's just, you know, you got to make sure it's unlocked here. Hit this button, then you got to push up here. There's just a lot of mechanism to it that we didn't like. So, we thought, hey, this is easier to use. Um, it's

9:33 easier to open, shut, um, and I think it maximizes that space and gives you a lot more light than what we were doing before. >> Yeah. So, I I see it's opaque right now, but boom. >> Yep. >> That's a nice touch. >> Yep. And then you do have a bug screen that comes down here. >> Oh, cool. Okay. So, there is a bug

9:50 screen. All right. All of this I will try out. So, this whole door opens up wide. >> So, you can lock it here. There's a lock here. >> Let's take a look at that. Okay. >> Um, so, you know, right now it's locked. Mhm. >> Can't open it. There we go. Open it. >> So, open it all the way here and then

10:05 There we go. >> So, you got to get right past Yeah. >> Yep. We got to make sure you're past it. >> Yeah. >> So, what I'm thinking looking at it, this is very nice cuz if you're backed up to a lake or just imagine a lake right here, guys. >> Yeah. Then we shut this and you know >> Yeah. Very nice.

10:19 >> Get some good air flow in here. Yeah, >> we also these windows that we use here. >> Um they're the acrylic windows, but >> um you can see, >> you know, they're much larger windows than what you typically get um in this. We actually had to import these all the way from Europe. >> Um being the bigger acrylic windows. And

10:37 then >> there's your night shade. >> Oh, so these open out um >> Yeah. And this is your egress canopy. >> Um I mean both of both of them function the same way, but >> Oh, that's why these have the red um tags on them. Yeah. So this is your emergency exit. >> Yep. So you can go out or you can go all

10:53 the way out. >> Very cool. What I was thinking I know you've got to consider weight here, Zach. >> Weight's a big is a big factor in everything that we do on it. Right now we have about um 500 lb. >> Our goal is to get it to 800 to a,000. So yeah, that's that's where our goal is. And when we get to that, then we can

11:10 add some seat belts back here. >> Oh, so we will get seat belts. Yep. >> Okay. You've just got to pull test all of that, I'm assuming. So, one thing before I forget, now I know you probably might not be able to do this because of weight. I've seen in the um in a in trailers and uh I don't know if I've

11:28 seen in a class A if you have a big opening like this, you can kind of put a balcony out here. >> You know, we thought about that. Actually, Liippard Components makes one. They use a slide out box and it it goes when it comes up, there's a big window here and then it goes down and it's a

11:44 little patio and then it kind of comes up again. And the big thing is just weight. >> Yeah. [laughter] Was weight. I wish we had about, you know, 500,000 lb of more payload on here cuz that would allow us to do a lot more. But >> yeah, but if you had a ramp here and you put some Elraas in here on the floor, I

12:00 can definitely see you can even bring a motorcycle if it's not super wide or big in here or a couple of um ebikes, bicycles, stuff like that. >> Yeah, whatever. And that's again, we want to really maximize that possibility for consumers. >> These seats, are they powered? >> They are. So you can um

12:17 >> this we got this up right now. So you have to remove this, but we can do this side. >> Um you just hit the button. This will come all the way down. >> Yeah. >> And for me, for example, that's pretty good. >> Yeah. If it's just you in here, um you know, you might just want to keep this

12:31 side down. That gives you a nice little pathway. >> And then, you know, you can use this as storage. There's a little cubby hole back here for your phone. There's also, um an outlet up here. >> Have you figured out exactly what you're calling this whole class of thing? I know we had some

12:46 >> class E is probably what we're going at. Sounds good. >> Yeah. I mean, technically RVIA right now has said, "Hey, this is a B because it's a it's a you know, it's a van." >> Yeah, I would agree with you. It's a van and you built within the parameters of this van. You didn't put a box on it.

13:00 You didn't change anything. So, I would agree with you. How much wider is it? Did you say 6 in? >> Yeah, I want to say it's about 6 in wider and six six inches more of ceiling height. Obviously, the the front is a lot different than your, you know, typical typical van. And when we got

13:14 this chassis from GM Chevy, everything's a lot um lighter than a typical. So the fiberglass, you know, is you can kind of push in on the walls. You really couldn't stand. >> So you did some reinforcement here. >> Yeah, we really had to reinforce uh with material that uh we call G-strong.

13:30 Reinforce that way you can walk on the roof. Now, you know, we added about 3 in of insulation and structure to this that >> typically, you know, an upfitter doesn't have to do in something like >> No, this is cool, Zach. I'm really looking forward to uh trying this out. Um before I let you go, any uh questions

13:49 or comments that you saw frequently from folks cuz I know I posted videos and there's a few other videos out there. >> Yeah. >> Anything you want to address? No, I was going to say the the charging was a question I think a lot of people had and it's um level two charging. So, you

14:04 could charge this on a fast charge. You can charge it on 50 amp. Um >> you know, we have it set up right now. Again, when the 50 amp comes in, the two legs, one going to the house, one going to the chassis. That way, you can charge both batteries at the same time or if you're at the campsite.

14:19 >> But, uh yeah, I'm trying to think probably about two hours, hour and a half, two hours on a fast charge. something about charging an electric vehicle that you know Hank you definitely know is the last 20% takes the longest. So you know if you're somewhere and want to charge it you know

14:34 30 minutes you might be able to go from 20 to 50. >> Um and same way where if you're you know charging at 50 amp or something like that. So on 50 amp usually about 12 hours if you're if you're just charging the chassis. >> I'm going to have this for a few days. I'll share that with you guys and then

14:50 when I uh turn it back into Zach, we'll we'll have another discussion, but I'll try to cover all of the questions and comments and concerns that people have of whether or not you can do this by actually doing it. >> Yeah. No, we look forward to the feedback. Look forward to again, I

15:05 always call it a her. Um but, you know, just just >> Do you have a name? Do you have a name for her yet? >> I mean, technically it's Arvex. Uh I like calling it the Bambina, but uh that's just me [laughter] personally. >> Yeah. Awesome. Thanks so much. Uh I'll check back in with you and you guys will

15:22 obviously see me on this video. We're going to get very detailed, so stay with us. [music] >> [music] >> I'm just going to run out and get myself something [music] to eat and come back and drive around a little bit more. I drove it down here a few miles. Not even really going that far. We've got uh 270

15:50 mi range, 253 mi on the odometer. Let's see what we do. We're in drive, so let's drive out. Check it out. There's my van. You know, it feels kind of big in here, but it's, you know, I think relatively easy to drive. Just feels like I'm driving a big excursion truck. And I really have to remember like how

16:15 much I really have behind me. I think I'm going to go into Essen House. Actually, I'm starving. So, I'm going in here. All of this is menu dining, but I will go around here since this seems pretty open.

16:41 Not even sure what I hear sloshing around in the back. Got to check up on that. But I will pull in here and take I'll take this off.

17:11 [music] [music] >> [music]

17:38 >> So, I'm going to convert [music] this into my bed. I'll probably just use this side and leave this side for sitting. Brought some other stuff that you guys can see here. So, um, actually, we could probably flip this down. Um, now let's see. Let's, uh,

18:07 there you go. All right. I was zoomed in real tight there for a second, but yeah. So, here we go. I am going to put some bedding on this right now. There you go. Bed set up. I don't know how you guys do it. I've got like a nice comfy blanket and a sheet. Another nice comfy blanket.

18:27 And then under that [snorts] Mexican blanket. So, it's just me sleeping alone. So, I need to be warm. It's going to be probably like 50°. I do have the Gree AC here running under heat and it is set to what do I have it set to here? Let's see. 72 on that. I think right now it's on and running heat. So, if we look here

18:53 at the battery, it's at 82% and it says it can run for 3 hours 27 minutes, but it's going on and off. So, um I could plug it in to 30 amp. We've have 30 amp shore power here. The uh RX is a 50 amp, but I have an adapter. I could plug it in, but I really want to see how it does overnight. So, right now, I won't do

19:18 that. And then on this side, I've got it set up. I can sit down here and I'm probably going to get out my laptop and do some work. All right. So, it is right now about a4 to 10 at night. Um I'm about to go to bed. See the bed is all made here. The opaque is on still. Can't see through it for nothing. I'm going to

19:43 take these lights off. Let's see. We can actually just see this is on a slider. This has a slider, which is cool. If I slide it, you guys will see waves and everything showing up here. So, there we go. That one's out. This one is out. Good night. See you in the morning. Take this off, too.

20:05 >> [music] >> It's a rainy day. I am going to drive the RVX, put some miles on it today. That's my plan. We've got uh 265 miles right now. So, I want to actually just get some miles on this. I would

20:30 agree that this is a class B van because this is the van and it's built within the parameters of the van. However, I really feel like this drives and feels like something bigger, but not in a bad way. It drives pretty good to me for something in that size. And here you guys will get to see me get up to about

20:51 55 m an hour. I think this is limited or has a governor that locks it out at 65 because it's a demo. [music] I haven't run the battery all the way down. Right now, the battery is at 173

21:18 mi, which is 63% charged. Okay. Um, I'm going to go to a supercharger, which is about 11 mi away from here in Goan, and I'm going to try it out. So, check it out. I am here at the supercharger, and I should be able to do this, but my app, it's not showing up here on the app, so I can't activate

21:38 anything. All right. So, that is super disappointing that this isn't going to charge. >> I am VERY DISAPPOINTED. >> OKAY, I'm here and uh go is showing up. So, I believe I just need to go. You hit uh charge here and then it's going to ask you which one you're using. Pull this down.

22:03 I may need to get the adapter. All right, it's green. So, let's see if we are factually charging. So, here it says charge cord connected. Let's go to charging. And it is fast charging, buddy. It's at 46% right now. It's adding about 42 mph,

22:31 which is not fast. At some point here, I'm going to end this cuz I don't really need to charge it up all the way to make my point. But just to show you guys, there we are. It is happening. It is getting done. So anyway, I'm going to actually probably go back over to the campground or find somewhere that I

22:47 could just do uh a wrap-up part of this where I talk to you guys cuz I really want to in this video not only give you details, but address all the concerns people would have of buying an electric camper van or an electric RV like the RVX from Coachman. Uh, so we're going to go over all those points here and I'll

23:07 do it on camera and plus it's cold. I need to put on a jacket or something. All right, I'll see you here in a second. All right, guys. So, I'm about to turn this RVX back to Zach. So, I want to wrap all this up and give you guys my quick thoughts on what I hope will actually be the first commercially

23:29 sold to the public electric RV. Okay. Now, obviously, I think you can uh gather from what I just said that I like this. I really do. I liked it when I saw it. Um I really wanted to get out and test it. You know, I I like the layout uh for something that's first coming out. So, I'll say the floor plan, I

23:53 think I would like to see maybe some different floor plans, but the floor plan that Zach put together, I think is good. So, I knew that, right? You've got a bathroom here that's pretty much the same bathroom as you would find in a Coachman Galleria, which I did get a chance to compare this to size-wise is

24:12 very close to what the Coachman Galleria is. Okay, so now the thing I really wanted to do was to drive this bad boy because I wanted to see how was it to drive, right? It's all-wheel drive. That sounds great. 200 and uh what was it? 75 milei range that I saw on there that sounded really good. So, I wanted to see

24:34 for myself how was it to drive this and then actually live with it and deal with everything. So, I am going to get into that. I am going to give you guys my quick um analysis of that before I turn it back in. Once again, just like when Zach handed this off to me, it is starting to rain. [laughter]

24:54 So, you know what? Let's do this. Let's uh let's go inside of it here. Press the button. I like that this side door is powered. The other side, the driver's side is not. I've gotten this a little bit dirty if you can't see that. Now, these seats, this is just the way it's going to be

25:12 from what I understand. I know they're not on the same level here. So, yeah, that's just the way it goes. At least over here, Coachman was able to make armrests and everything, which I think is nice. I'm going to press the button out there. close it. Um, so they were able to do that here. This is probably going to be

25:33 longterm the more comfortable seat because on this one, even though it's bigger, they can't do armrests here because um, airbags. So, that's that. I would say up front driving it was I think it was cool. I really didn't go on the road for like, you know, 3 4 hours at a time to see how that would be. And I imagine

25:59 that without the armrest here, that's going to be the interesting part, right? Cuz you really don't have anything to lean on. I was driving this and having fun with it. But there's really nothing to bolster you or to lean into. So, we'll see what happens with that. This is very much, from what I hear, similar

26:16 to other GM Chevy products out there. I think it's uh very close to what's in the Hummer EV. So, and tons of storage and everything up here. That's cool. Got my bag there. So, uh I mean I think you guys have seen all this, right? Here's the inside of it once again. You know, it's got this two bench system across

26:36 from each other. This converts down into a bed. Huge open window here. Like, if you want to look out at the view as we're doing right now, that's great. You can do it. you don't want to do it, you can press that. I know I'm doing kind of a I'm kind of doing another walk around before I get into everything with

26:56 you guys. I like, like I said, the whole layout here. I think we definitely need some bunggees over here. Um maybe they can go with some soft bags. I know they're going to kind of pull back some of the weight on this. You know, you've got the kitchen, you've got a lot of cabinetry. I feel

27:14 like maybe the cabinetry and everything here is a little bit tight. So, it'll be cool to maybe see some of these reduced or something and give you a more open feeling right when you're coming in. It's got fridge. Big fridge. I took all my stuff out cuz I'm taking it back. But big fridge and freezer.

27:36 You guys can see more more storage here. Um just a ton of that here, which is cool. And then obviously the bathroom. Um I think I said this outside. This bathroom is pretty much the bathroom from a Coachman Galleria. Um cassette style. I did empty that out before I take it back to the guys. Uh

27:58 Gree AC. I think they're going to need more than this GRE AC because um uh it's cold. So I was doing heat and the heat is very taxing. went to sleep last night around 9:00 or 9 something. Woke up at about 4:35 this morning, which is my usual sleep pattern. You know, everything was fine last night. I was

28:21 running the AC kind of dark here, but I ran this Gree AC on heat and um I did wind up having to plug everything in because uh it was running this battery down pretty fast, the heat. So, I did plug in. I'm not plugged in now. I'm at 97 uh% state of charge. You know, just running the lights right now in the

28:44 fridge. I could do it for 3 days, 4 days average, or whatever. It's all good. But when you turn on that AC for heat, it gets bad. Um I would like to see a rougher floor here. Maybe something textured or the coin stuff that you see, maybe something heated that would help. Um or I I think Zach has some solutions

29:02 that they're going to apply for that. We got a tower of power. All of that good stuff here. I think when people think, "Oh, the views are great." Right? That's probably my favorite part. I think when people talk about or have discussions about electric RVs, there's some things that come up, some objections that folks

29:24 have out there. And I said to myself, you know what? Let's let's talk about that first and then I'll get into kind of like my final thoughts on everything. But let's go over the objections that people have. I'll go through this quickly. Okay, so range and battery life. How far can I go without can I

29:42 really go without running out of power? So for the folks who asked that question on this, [gasps] um it's the advertised range is 275 miles. Well, I think people are saying like 270 or whatever. Now, I'm going to say that for sure you'll get that in city traffic and stop and go. Um, it to me it seemed

30:06 like, okay, it's definitely going to get that because with electric, you have regenerative braking. So, the more braking that you're doing when you want to slow down, you just come off the gas pedal and then the vehicle is recharging itself a little bit, right? And also when you go on the brake. So, my

30:23 experience from driving is that worked very well. And I would say, yeah, you would definitely get that 275, maybe more out of it in the city. I think it's when you get on highways that that's going to be um reduced. Maybe you'll see 250 or something like that. But that's really not bad because when

30:44 I asked the RV folks here and all the research and everything that we show say that that most people traveling in RVs travel some something like 300 miles on average in a day. So I think you're covered there. But let's say we take it to a little bit of an extreme and you you know you want to do 500 miles a day.

31:07 So that's really I would say from when you leave your destination if you've got a charge at that point that's about two charges and that's really not bad. Now from me going to the Tesla Supercharger when it was at 55% and I wanted to charge it back up to um 100%. It said it would take about 2 hours. The fastest

31:32 charge you're going to get at superchargers is as close as you can get to zero. So from zero to about 30% goes really fast. Then from 30 to about 50% it slows down a little bit. From 50 to 100% it really slows down. And that's the reason for that um time thing. That might be a disqualifier for some people

31:56 out there. I'm just telling you u what I see about that. That might be a disqualifier, but when I was at that Tesla Supercharger, first of all, a bunch of people came up to me that were there charging with Teslas, um I kind of took the um handicapped or accessible charger because there was a garbage

32:16 truck there, but it wasn't very busy. And um people were coming up to me and asking me cuz they're like, "Wow, this thing is here charging." They were interested. But in general, if you're if I'm in an RV like this and I'm charging, it's very different than if you are in your car

32:32 and charging, which your car may be less comfortable. Typically, when I'm traveling with an electric car, we stop somewhere, charge, I go in, use the bathroom, um, you know, I'll get some drinks, I'll walk around, that kind of a thing. And you could do all of that with an RV, but yes, it will take you longer

32:50 because of the charging system that's in vans like this, right? Work commercial vans like this are not going to have a really fast charging system installed because they feel they don't need it. The whoever's using it can run around all day with especially with 275 miles or more, they can run around all day, do

33:10 what they need to, and then overnight go plug it in at the depot. it's going to be fine um by the next day. So, you're in an RV though in this case and you can work, you can sleep, you can make yourself something to eat. It's really to me not that bad, right? I would try to avoid um charging it, you know, at

33:35 the highly congested times for me. I was going to check out um Electrify America and charge there. I've done it before around here when we borrowed the Chevy Silverado if you guys want to see that. But really what I was concerned about was the Tesla Supercharger and you know I would just avoid like uh rush hour

33:55 times right when it's really busy can get crowded in those places. I would avoid that. But you have Tesla which is a big thing. You have Electrify America. You have all the other uh charging charge point all those other things that exist. And then the fact that you're in an RV, you also have the campgrounds

34:14 that you may go to. I don't go to as many campgrounds, but if you do go to campgrounds with this, you'll have and you have 50 amp, you can charge up the house battery and also charge the chassis battery a little bit. if everything's hooked up right now. If it's not hooked up right, you can still

34:36 charge up the chassis battery separately. Right. Or if you go someplace that has 30 amp, you can't plug into the 30 amp and charge the house and the chassis at the same time, but you can charge one then charge the other. And essentially, when you charge the chassis, that charge will be there

34:54 for you when you're when you're leaving and going off on your next trip. But here on the driver's side of the van, this is your charging port. So, if you're at home, your 50 amp would just go in here. If you're supercharging, you would remove this. Um, and then you guys saw the adapter that you would connect

35:17 um to, let's say, the Tesla Supercharger and then plug in here. So, this is how you charge up. Now, if you are doing it at a campground or at home, there's this port here, which we're going to go inside. And if we come around here, you'll see they've got um an area here

35:42 for the charging. So, this looks like this is your charging cable that you would use at home. And they've got uh adapters and everything in here that you would need. So, if you're plugging into um 50 amp, you'll be able to do it if you have the right adapter. Even 30 amp. And you can charge 30 amp

36:06 using can charge up the actual chassis battery, right? Your go battery. You can charge that up, you know, using all all the stuff here. There's a bunch of different adapters and [clears throat] things like that that you have to have, but you can do it from 30 amp. Okay? You just need to do one or the other. If you

36:24 have 50 amp, you can do both. That's what these guys said. This is the 50 amp cable for charging up the chassis. And if you plug this into 50 amp, it would charge the chassis battery as well as the house battery. I was plugging into 30 amp here. So, I had that adapter. Um, you know, if you're doing 30 amp, it's

36:46 only going to charge the house. So, there you go. You know, I think that if I was boondocking and therefore I wasn't plugging in anywhere so far as the chassis battery, I would just charge up on the down times and I would stick to Tesla Superchargers. I wouldn't go to Electrify America unless I had to, you

37:07 know, I would try to find other alternatives to be honest with you guys. I'm not a super fan of Electrify America, but I think it's there. The Etransit that Lola and I had had 130 mile range at the most. This has 275. I mean, that's pretty good. Even if you say 270, that's really good. Even if you

37:28 say 250 on the highway, to me, that's good. And that's ready. So um all right let's see uh two charging infrastructure I think I answered that a little bit you know infrastructure and time where and how will I charge on the road I think I answered that in in this as well um I think it's just a big deal

37:49 that you can do you can charge this at Tesla and I looked to see if there was any videos of it this will probably be one of the first or one of of a very few videos out there where you see someone charging a bright drop a GM bright drop van at a Tesla supercharger and and the I had two people who were charging this

38:12 morning say I didn't even know that was possible. So um yeah the infrastructure I think that that Tesla superchargers makes a big difference. So um hope hopefully that answers your question. Can it handle 250 uh kW or 120 uh kW will be too slow when traveling? So most of the faster chargers that you will see

38:36 from the supercharger side, it's not just the supercharger side that you go to electrify America, um Tesla superchargers, charge point. It's not just how fast that thing could charge, it's also how fast the onboard charger of your vehicle works. And once again, I did explain that a little bit in my

38:54 first answer. And with a big commercial vehicle like this, it doesn't have a big charger. You typically will have that with, you know, what's typically privatelyowned vehicles. So, you'll get that in, you know, your regular Teslas and all the regular cars out there are competing to have faster and faster

39:14 chargers. So, in that case, you you'll be fine. I think in this case it's just not going to make a difference. It would be nice to see um the companies building these put in faster chargers in them. We're going to talk about that a little bit because I know people are yelling at the screen right now about news that's

39:34 come out about GM and Bright Drop. I'm going to hit that before we get out of here. But yeah. Okay. So there you go. Let's move on to number three. Upfront um and ownership cost. Is it worth the premium price tag? So yeah, right now I think that electric is a little bit more expensive. Um, and we've seen incentives

39:53 go away. I think the companies that are going to survive all this. This is kind of related to what I'm going to answer or get into later as well. I think the companies that survive this are going to be the ones that make more and more affordable options. And um some of that, you know, is just going to have to do

40:12 where you build it because that's the the the times and the world that we live in. So it's going to make a difference of where you build it. So we're going to have to see more of these guys building here. And hopefully [snorts] they will be able to bring these down um to a reasonable price. But let's look in, you

40:30 know, I see this as a class B van. I already said that this is very close in size to a 170 extended sprinter. 170 extended sprinter could just the chassis alone could cost close to $90,000. So, let's just think about that for a second, right? And that's why when people ask me, well, why are vans

40:52 $150,000? Um, and then even more than that, the big part of it starts with the chassis. And then that has to be built. All these components have to go in. Um, obviously any company making something has to make a profit. The dealer selling it to you, they have to make a profit. That's

41:08 business, right? So, that's how things work. So, this particular RX I hear is going to come in at around or maybe even under 150,000. And me personally, uh, based on what you get here, I think that's a good price. Um, number four, performance in harsh conditions. what happens in winter or when towing. Um, so

41:31 relative to I don't think towing is relative to this. Really and truly, I don't uh if you're going to get something like this or most electric vehicles, um, and you plan on towing, I would say don't do it. Go with diesel or something else. Um, you know, this has a lot of torque, but typically these will not be

41:50 designed to tow things. So, um, if you're going to be towing, especially if you're towing something heavy, then I would say just get a diesel. Um, or if you want to tow with electric, you're going to need to get a very big battery. Um, and then whatever you're towing needs to be lightweight. [snorts]

42:09 So, far as performance in harsh conditions, uh, it's been cold this entire time that I'm that I've been here. I've tested this for 3 days, slept in it, driven it, and all that kind of stuff. um going down to 40s and that may not be harsh enough conditions for what we're talking about here to see it

42:27 affect the battery. I think the battery can be affected when it's very hot or when it's very cold. Um if it's very hot, the battery the system depending on what you have is trying to cool it down. If it's very cold, is obviously trying to warm it up and that does consume some of the battery to do that. In my

42:44 experience here in the 40s, I didn't really see that. If I own something like this, I'm chasing the weather to be honest with you. Like I talked about the heat in this or even if you're running the AC, you're going to run down that chassis battery really fast. Um, in terms of battery, I would like to see

43:00 the guys building these um use more of the chassis battery when you are actually camping. Uh, maybe that's going to happen in time. We'll see what'll happen with that. Number five, safety and reliability. Are these safe for full-time living? Uh yeah absolutely uh my that would be my answer to that. I

43:20 think um every company that's building um you know for here in North America uh even in Europe and mo most of the most of the world companies that are building have to think about um uh safety and reliability and you know specifically when we're talking about this and I think I'm probably going to

43:45 reiterate this uh towards the end this Bright Drop is built on uh GM's Ultium system. So, it's and it's all-wheel drive. So, it has two motors and the Ultium battery. This the 600 means it's the extended battery. The 400 has the standard battery. So, that's why this has an extended range and two motors.

44:09 But all of this stuff GM uses in buil puts into other vehicles. So, the Hummer EV, the Chevy Silverado EV that Lola and I drove. So, I think uh motors are very tough. The biggest problem you may have over time is with the battery, but uh battery technology has gotten very good. And then also the the way that um GM

44:33 developed their battery technology here, it should be easy enough for you to switch that out in time if you have degradation. So, what I my evidence that I've seen out there, I'm not super worried about that. Uh, six, environmental and practical trade-offs. Is it truly greener for my lifestyle?

44:52 Um, my answer to that question is, you know, what's your definition of greener? I'm not uh I love the I love the planet. I love nature, right? I mean, this is why I want to travel and and I want to be outside and I want to see nature and enjoy it. So, you know, I don't really do what I'm doing here, though. My

45:13 pursuit of electric is not really for saving the planet. I think if you really truly want to be green, you shouldn't constantly buy new vehicles. Like uh sustainability, let's say if we put it that way, is you not constantly consuming when you don't have to. That's my opinion. And so what I mean by that

45:34 is whether you drive an ice car, electric car, you know, and it's tough. Like I I'm a person who at one point in my life I change my car every 3 months. I just don't think that's a really good thing to do. I want something I can have for a long time and um if things fail, if batteries fail, motors fail, I should

45:54 be able to repair uh replace those. That to me is sustainability. If we keep building things and then destroying them and then building other things, then obviously we're pulling resources out of the planet, etc., right? I know everyone's going to have a different way that they look at all of this. So,

46:12 electric for me though is really um uh convenience really is the big part of that. So, when we're talking about cars, it's convenient for me to just charge a home and not have to stop anywhere and charge. Now, if you're talking about an RV and you're traveling, you may lose some of that convenience. When we talk

46:32 about time because you have to stay longer to charge in the in um in time, that's going to change if we get better chargers installed, um you know, all that kind of stuff, bigger batteries, uh all of that. with if if something big like this, you know, can be charged really fast, then that is

46:55 going to become more convenient. But I think that if you are RVing, you're not as much of it in as much of a rush as if you are going to work every day. So, um that's kind of my thoughts on that. And I really think like you have all this power, you know, if you're driving electric, it's like the power is

47:18 immediate and you know, especially when it's all-wheel drive, you have really good control and all that kind of stuff. So, this to me doesn't drive like a van. It doesn't drive like my van or even the, you know, a Sprinter, big Sprinter van or small ProMaster. It drives a little bigger. This drives to me like

47:36 the big excursion trucks that I've driven in terms of how it feels. you're very high up, you know, feels really big. It's it's a, you know, it seems like it's a little bit longer even though it's roughly in the same range, but it's definitely wider and taller. So, uh, but it still drives very well

47:55 and it still has a lot of power. One of the other things I would say about the driving profile here is that, you know, you are driving a big box and when you're going fast and it's windy, you really feel it. But this being all-wheel drive and all the assistant stuff that it has to help you out, I'm very used to

48:14 it. I think it's a tradeoff. This is bigger. So, it's a little different to drive it, but when you get where you're going, you've got more room, more space. So, so one of the things that I appreciate is this. One press of a button. That's what's behind me. All right. So, bird's eye view. What's

48:32 behind me? And I'm doing 56 m an hour. So yeah, you don't always need it, but it's nice sometimes to have that just so you can see cuz sometimes a car might be in your blind spot or something behind you. So that's nice to have. I think on a lot of vehicles it goes away. So there's no

48:55 uh mirror up here, although I would be able to see all the way back. There's no rear view mirror or digital rear view up here. So that helps. >> If I was driving um you know something diesel or whatever, I wouldn't have this much efficiency and power. Well, let's see. Um number seven, lifestyle fit and

49:15 availability. Does this match my van lifestyle? I don't think this is going to work for everyone. Obviously, right? [gasps] The best analogy I can think of if if you go back to um before cars, people were using were they were walking using bicycles and they were using horses and other animals to pull carts, buggies,

49:40 etc. Right? When cars came around, a lot of people said, "Okay, I don't, you know, that's that's crazy. I this a horseless carriage. What is this? I don't want to do this." Um, and some people have stuck with that. As I've been driving around here, you know, I I see the Amish folks here. They've stuck

49:56 with that. And that's for a religious, spiritual reason. And and I have a deep appreciation of that. Um, you know, but most of us have moved on to cars. Now, when it comes to electric, I think there's a lot of the same reaction to that. And as I've said before, I'm not doing electric trying to save the

50:17 planet. I'm looking for something that's more convenient. And the big thing that everyone says is, well, I can go fill this thing up with gas or diesel in like 3 5 minutes versus electric. It's like 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30, an hour, you know, could 2 hours, could be longer um to fill it up. I think that we are in

50:38 the world where at the time where a lot of that stuff is being um tackled, companies are fixing that. We don't see that really moving into this space here of RVs yet because RVs obviously are bigger than cars. So, a lot of these commercial vans, which is what this is, and trucks and stuff like that, we

51:00 haven't seen it yet. But, we are moving there. We will see that. I think if you look at Tesla, they've got the Tesla Semi. Um there, you know, obviously I have a Cybert truck which is not as big as this, but could tech, you know, I think there's a possibility that cyber um that Tesla can turn that Cybertruck

51:19 chassis or very quickly make a chassis that could be used like this. So, I think we'll see those things get better. But really and truly, if you're RVing, you know, um you're not supposed to be in as much of a rush. Does that mean that it wouldn't be nice to still have this technology? Of course it would be.

51:39 Now you would say, well then what is the benefit of it? I think I'll I'll state it again. The benefit is that you have this really good immediate power, you know, and it is cheaper. So for example, in the 55 minutes I was charging today, I didn't fully charge. I didn't, you know, I didn't want to like fully charge

52:01 up and take all that time. I just wanted to see if the Tesla Supercharger worked. But in that time that I charged, and I'll I'll share that here. Um, it cost me $13. So, let's say I did spend the full time there, it would have been less than 30 bucks to fully charge and then I could

52:22 go back down the road. If I was driving another vehicle, a diesel, gas, I'm spending at least 90 to 100 or maybe 150 bucks every time I do that. So, there is a little bit of tradeoff of that and I think in time we'll we will see these things get better. So, um, my opinion of this, the Arvex, I, you know, one, I

52:45 want to thank the folks at Coaching Class A, Zach Epers and the rest of his team over there that put this prototype together for letting me um, you know, come up here and borrow it and um, you know, do all these things. I really like this. Okay, if I could, I would buy one of these, right? I'm This is something

53:08 for like this is meant for the guy like me who's been looking at this for a long time waiting for something to become commercially available. Um that's actually useful. That's actually useful. So now here is where the rub comes in. So while I've been out here working on this, um GM has actually announced that

53:31 they are shuttering their plant in Canada that builds the Bright Drop. So, I know everyone's been screaming, "Hank, you not even going to make those anymore." Um, yeah. So, that came up while I was out here. I've seen all the news just as well as you guys have. Um, yeah, that I mean, that's just a reality

53:49 of the world that we're living in today and things that are going on. And that's way out of my control, you know. Now, even though they're not going to build any more of these, and I don't think they've really built any this year after April or something like that. So, let's give it the first quarter. They haven't

54:06 really built any of these. There's a lot of these available. So, my opinion on that is there's nothing that would stop Coachman from buying a hundred of these chassis, 200, whatever of these chassis at a very affordable price cuz obviously GM um it wasn't able to sell these to other people, you know, in other

54:26 industries. I don't know why because this thing is really good. I'm telling you, this is my first time driving a Bright Drop, not just the RVX hair that was built by Coachman, and I think it's really good. I don't see why in other industries they didn't adopt this, but I think if Coachman

54:45 um took a chance on this and bought a hundred of these, let's say, and built limited editions of it and telling everyone, "Hey, we're just going to build these." I think it would be good. I think there's uh you will find at least a few hundred people out there if not more that would want to give this a

55:04 chance and apply it to their life and when they buy this they'll be good for a really long time like I said you know what else would you have to get for a long time what would change that you you know maybe the charger things like that but you could probably upgrade it Elon how come we can't just buy a Tesla like

55:25 this. What's [snorts] going on? Someone at Tesla, Elon, Hans, Klouse, someone. Why can't we do this? Now, you might say, well, okay, if GM discontinues it, then, you know, is it is it just going to break down on me? You know, will they will they actually stand behind what they make? I don't

55:46 know. I'm not GM, but I'm going to assume that they will because like I said, the Ultium um skateboard that is under this goes into a lot of other electric vehicles that GM is making. And so far as I know, they haven't cancelled all of those. Right. So, you still will be able to get

56:07 batteries. You still will be able to get the motors. Um the components in here like up front, if that's what you see in Chevys and um other GM electric vehicles that's out there, you'll be able to take care of those. Electric vehicles, very simple compared to an internal combustion vehicle. You don't have a

56:25 transmission, you don't have an engine, you don't have to do oil changes. um you just basically have um you know motors. If in the case of this being all-wheel drive, you have one up front, one in the back, you have a battery, then you have computers, um uh steering, you know, steering system,

56:46 etc. in this that runs everything, but very much simplified. So, there's not really um anything that would go wrong on the chassis side that I don't think that GM could manage. On top of that, like I said, I would really like to see other electric manufacturers out there. Specifically, I'm talking about Tesla. I

57:06 think Riven does make a van, but they don't give you the battery. They don't give you the all-wheel drive um that I think that the RV industry would find useful, you know, so far as selling it commercially. So, maybe Rivian steps up, maybe Tesla steps up, maybe some other companies out there step up, you know.

57:27 Um, at the end of the day though, it's survival of the fittest. But when it comes to this, when it comes to the Arvex, I'm impressed by this. I think that we will still see this. This is my prediction. I am not uh a psychic. I don't have a crystal ball, but I I hope, let's put it that way, that's maybe

57:48 better. I hope that we see this at the Tampa RV show. I look forward to seeing the people who are interested in this and I'm also looking forward to seeing your questions, your comments, go ahead, hit me with whatever you want to if you've got more questions and I can get them answered by the folks at Coachman.

58:06 I will do that. Um, you know, and and then just give me your opinions. But as someone who I bought a etransit and was going to do stuff with it and then really fell out of love with it, I find this to really be in the realm of what I would actually take my money and buy. Is it perfect? No. I think there's little

58:27 This is a prototype, so I think there's little tweaks and things like that that I went over that obviously could be fixed and it would make it better. And uh I am disappointed to see the news that's going on out there, but that's the world. That's the world. someone reach out to Elon Musk and tell them

58:44 that they uh tell him or the folks at Tesla the RV industry is interested in electric vehicles and if I could help you get connected with the RV world, specifically the folks at uh Coachman, Forest River, etc. I would be happy to do that. Anyway, I am going to end it there. Uh big thanks to Coachman Class A

59:08 Zack Epers for giving me this opportunity. I really appreciate it. This is the kind of uh content that I'm excited about making. It's RVs, it's vans, it's electric as well. So yeah, I had a lot of fun doing this and I'm very happy and very impressed with this. All right, I'll see you on the next one. I'm

59:26 out. Peace.