Volkswagen's New Camper Has a Loft Where You Can Stargaze | Hacker News Reader

Volkswagen's New Camper Has a Loft Where You Can Stargaze

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85 pointsbillconan40 comments

This is my new least favorite sport: speaking about concept vehicles in the present tense. "has sophisticated features ... has space for a sink ... includes an LCD projector" Oh wait. "The California XXL is still in the concept stage." Now there's correct usage of the present tense.

Concept cars come to market approximately 0% of the time. In the rare cases that they do actually make it to market (many many years later), they undergo significant changes through the product development pipeline.

Is this the effect of PR people setting the tone for these stories, or is it the authors/editors of the piece that want to trick people into believing it exists? The point about the "concept stage" was buried in the middle of the article.

There’s a crazy amount of subliminal PR in this vaporware puff piece.

VW PR are trying to get you to think of VW as a nature loving, fun outdoorsy company that’s connected to the environment. Instead of that company who cared so little about pollution in the environment that they literally programmed their cars to lie about how much pollution they were spewing.

The car doesn’t need to ever exist, what exists is the manufactured image in your mind of VW and a “harmonious” place in nature.

I think this hits the nail right on the head. Agreed 100%.

Electro vehicles hysteria is much worse for the environment than some diesels spewing a bit more Nox than expected. Vw made a huge mistake because their engines are among the most fuel efficient on the market and now they got all the blame and punishment. Most cars have much worse emissions than the cheating Vw models

While you're right in that the extra nox might not be that bad in the scheme of things, what irks me is that they systematically lied and they also actively marketed AGAINST hybrids and other clean technologies based upon falsified data.

Is systemmatically hiding that most E Vehicles drive with Coal and/or Fukushima-fuel that much better. The whole debate of e-vehicles versus traditional vehicles is heavily warped.

Im actually for a easily visible sign wethr a vehicle drives with some nature friendly fuel- or the oppossite. Also, what has this debate to do with anything- this is a concept car- it could be e or tradfuel.

I understand what you're saying. At the same time, electric vehicles can be powered by electricity generated from any number of sources while ICE vehicles require carbon-based fuels. Even when the electricity is generated from carbon-based sources, those power plants can be located strategically (e.g., away from heavily populated areas), can be run more efficiently (e.g., at peak efficiency for power generation rather than at varying efficiencies in vehicles), and have better pollution controls.

Speak for yourself. I power my vehicle through my solar panels and so will most electric owners eventually.

“Despite its West Coast name, the van isn't yet sold in the United States”

Consider that, AFAIK, they haven’t build a single production vehicle, yeah, I’m not surprised that I can’t head to my local Seattle-area VW dealer and order one.

The “why” of this piece? With with Daimler/Dodge Sprinters seemingly taking the lion’s share of the camper van market (at least in he U. S.), I assume it’s a puff piece to promote VW’s Sprinter-like chassis. That and with Daimler’s purchase of Westfalia, maybe some kind of FUD (“don’t buy a Sprinter! We’ll have something better RSN.”)

“Concept cars come to market approximately 0% of the time.”

Depends, we really enjoyed our Isuzu Vehicross:

https://farm1.static.flickr.com/97/229602594_94651a28a3_b.jp...

Anyone could buy, they were not hard to come by, despite incredibly limited runs, a thousand a year for a model, tops, some models as low as 50:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isuzu_VehiCROSS#Production_d...

Very tough, well built, you can still see them on the road.

This seems pretty cool then I realize that it would probably cost 100,000$ or so and I realize looking at the stars from a blanket is free.

Given the price of comparable Sprinter-based campers, you might even be a little under. But it’s all moot. It’s a concept vehicle, and even if VW builds it, it won’t be coming to the U. S. The pop-top California never did, and the last time VW sold campers in the U. S. was fourteen years ago.

This is disappointing. If this RV can relieve the need for house purchasing in Bay Area, 100k price tag doesn't seem to be a problem.

It's a shame that this vehicle is named California and we can't buy it in California. America is such a great place for RV camping (vast area, low population density, plenty parking spaces and so many beautiful places to go), and VW somehow decided not to sell any of these for 14 years!

I mean, just checking the craigslist prices for those second hand vw campers from the 60s, their marketing people should be able to tell there is a strong demand for this in the US.

The issue is where to park them. In southern california, there's some amazing rv parks in the desert that you can stay in for under $500 month, you get electricity and plumbing.

Are there many places like that in the bay area?

Depends on what you’re willing to call the Bay Area. Head east and you get to spots like that within thirty minutes, as long as it’s not commute time. If you decided to BART from Pittsburgh/Bay Point or Dublin/Pleasanton you could probably have a twenty minute commute from a cheap RV community and then take the train into the city easily enough. It’s much harder if you want to work on the peninsula, although maybe there are easy public transit options from down near Gilroy that I’m unaware of.

Honestly better would be to get a boat. Cheap slips exist all over the place.

I've considered live aboard boating, definitely would like to try it at some point

Presumably the US RV market mostly wants more space.

Sort of the same thing with housing. I guess that permitting would get in the way of building really tiny efficiency apartments, but if people really wanted to live in ~10 square meters at a vaguely inconvenient location, housing would already be less of an issue.

RVs are not houses. Look at the target market, look at who actually drives these things. They are mobile bathrooms. "See the stars while never being more than ten feet from your own private bathroom."

The current "California" tops out at ~$60,000.

Just looking at a picture of that little space gives me a tight feeling in my chest.

Even older VW campers cost an arm and a leg. [1]

[1] http://www.ebay.com/bhp/vw-camper

wow those things look incredibly unsafe

Naa, you'd probably be fine...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpU5azjCB8

From the comments: "This VW was loaded with 1 ton of concrete - then driven into a barrier at 100Km/h. It was a crash barrier test..."

Sleeping in the bed of a pickup also affords a great view of the stars and is also fairly inexpensive (compared to a dedicated camper, and especially if you have other uses for a truck). In the western US weather is often good during the summer and you don't really need much over your head.

Except pickup beds are now 5'6" instead of 8', which makes this less comfortable

The reason they’re called California is merely because of the romantic image the name has in Europe though.

The concept car looks nice but the iconic design is completely lost here.

Yup. Just like the Ferrari California.

I'm in the deep south. I think California is a good name for this. It invokes an image of a different style of "camping".

Not real. It's a "concept."

I agree with the top comment. This is a VW puff piece. Ya know, the same company that just got into a metric shit ton of trouble for being environmentally irresponsible. Their motivations in publishing this are pretty paper thin when you think about it.

As someone who's lived in a 'hacker trailer' for an extended period of time and kinda-failed, next time I'm gonna use an LMTV. Uncle Sam paid ~$100k+ for each one of them. Sometimes you can find one with living quarters/plumbing.

http://www.govplanet.com/Light+Medium+Tactical+Vehicle+%28LM...

Looks similar idea to a Unimog[1], which I've seen a few camping out in Europe when I've been on holiday; saw a couple when I drove through Western Sahara (cheap banger rally stuff), and they can get just about anywhere. Some of them are kitted out to a seriously high standard, and you could go just about anywhere and be comfortable in them. I think the fuel consumption might be somewhat heavy though...

[1] http://www.expedition-trucks.com/brokers/unimog-4x4-expediti...

It looks kind of... huge. And cramped at the same time. I'd rather either have a small van and deal with less convenience, or tow a mini-house-on-trailer. That way I have a transportation vehicle that isn't also as big and unwieldy as a boat.

I like it although it might get pretty cramped if you plan on spending weeks on the road. Having to make up the bed every night could also prove to be an annoyance. One thing is for sure, however, based on that video. It seems to make you smile all the time.

I've traveled and camped across the U.S. in a EuroVan Weekender, and I can confirm it can get cramped, and that it can be a massive inconvenience to break down the sleeping quarters every morning if you need to drive the vehicle.

Our last trip in the vehicle had us climbing in West Texas in the winter (meaning warm days but cold nights). The sun set around 6pm each evening, which means we were crammed into the van for over 12 hours (temps would rapidly drop toward freezing, and we couldn't have a campfire due to state park rules). We were ready to be home after two weeks, that's for sure.

What I tell people about our Vanagon Westfalia (which has even less space), if you're spending a lot of time in the van you're doing it wrong. If you want to live in it, get a Class C (built on a box truck chassis) or better. If you just want a windproof, waterproof container to sleep in that has the conveniences of running water, stove and a fridge, a camper van might be for you. We also have two 60-80 lb. dogs. Space considerations mean the dogs get the downstairs bed, we take the upper bunk. Winter camping (in Seattle == 40F and drizzling rain) gets a little claustrophobic between weather and very early sunset, so we usually spend but a night or two.

Making the bed is no more an annoyance than it is tent camping. Still, it takes me all of five minutes either way: open the valve on the mattress pad, unroll the sleeping bag. If you have a young back, you don't even need the sleeping pad, as it's got a (pretty poor) mattress already.

As for making us smile, yes, it does. My parents offered to chip in for us to buy a larger Class C (enough for us to buy a low-end new one with no money out of our pocket). We turned them down. We wouldn't have room to keep the Westy, and we realized we loved the Westy too much to get rid of him.

I'm a big fan of 'panoramic sunroofs' and look forward to seeing them included vehicles that don't have every other bell and whistle.

I find it... ugly?

Well, it is a Volkswagon after all.

That looks fantastic. I look forward to buying the low end model on craigslist in a few years :p

That thing is an awesome little big package!!

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