The New All electric California due in Autumn 2019. What are you thoughts?

[Amarillo]

i thought the thread was about an electric california ? oh well. anyway i can't be arsed to continue it. everythings been said already

A nuclear powered California thread?

Now there’s a thought… At present I cart about three power sources for California camping: diesel to get to where I want to go; a second battery for lighting at night and to recharge my iPhone, and gas for cooking my bacon and eggs in the morning.

A small nuclear reactor under the bonnet and I could drive the van refuelling every 10,000,000 miles, recharge my iPhone in 0.00001 seconds and nuke my bacon and eggs for breakfast!

 

[soulstyledevon]

A nuclear powered California thread?

Now there’s a thought… At present I cart about three power sources for California camping: diesel to get to where I want to go; a second battery for lighting at night and to recharge my iPhone, and gas for cooking my bacon and eggs in the morning.

A small nuclear reactor under the bonnet and I could drive the van refuelling every 10,000,000 miles, recharge my iPhone in 0.00001 seconds and nuke my bacon and eggs for breakfast!

Just need to jump into 2015 and grab a Mr Fusion…

 

[vmaxkiddy]

Since that thread is being resurrected: does anyone know what happened to this T6.1-based electric California? Has anybody got one? Was it all just vapourware?

Not Calis but converted Transporters.

Used Volkswagen ABT e-Transporter Vans for Sale | VWCV

used.volkswagen-vans.co.uk

Volkswagen Abt e-Transporter review | Auto Express

Volkswagen's sole electric commercial vehicle in the UK mixes the Transporter's impressive core qualities with EV efficiency, but watch that range!

www.autoexpress.co.uk

 

[2into1]

Not Calis but converted Transporters.

Used Volkswagen ABT e-Transporter Vans for Sale | VWCV

used.volkswagen-vans.co.uk

Volkswagen Abt e-Transporter review | Auto Express

Volkswagen's sole electric commercial vehicle in the UK mixes the Transporter's impressive core qualities with EV efficiency, but watch that range!

www.autoexpress.co.uk

80 mile range, although a bargain at £25k +vat for a virtually new one if the range suits your business.

 

[Digger]

I specced up a T7 multivan and it came to over £65K so I think a Buzz or T7 as a California would start at about £85K. Need to start saving in case its even more.

 

[Kayleigh]

I specced up a T7 multivan and it came to over £65K so I think a Buzz or T7 as a California would start at about £85K. Need to start saving in case its even more.

You will find used Oceans up for over £80k, so £85k for a new Buzz Cali sounds plausible.

 

[Mehdime]

Not Calis but converted Transporters.

Used Volkswagen ABT e-Transporter Vans for Sale | VWCV

used.volkswagen-vans.co.uk

Volkswagen Abt e-Transporter review | Auto Express

Volkswagen's sole electric commercial vehicle in the UK mixes the Transporter's impressive core qualities with EV efficiency, but watch that range!

www.autoexpress.co.uk

Right. 80 miles is quite a long way away from the 300 miles they initially announced. Also:

« a speed limiter that restricts the van to 56mph is fitted as standard to help maintain battery range. ».

I understand why they didn’t bother selling a Cali version of this.

 

[Blueeyedboy]

I recently had a electric transporter on demo as looking to charge my works vehicle. Personally I think it’s a tick box from
Manufacturers to look like they are embracing the change. Only got 40miles before needing a full charge. It will come but it’s a long way off.
In my local VW garage today was the multi van not the best looking van for the money.
Happily stick with my California

 

[Perfectos]

A nuclear powered California thread?

Now there’s a thought… At present I cart about three power sources for California camping: diesel to get to where I want to go; a second battery for lighting at night and to recharge my iPhone, and gas for cooking my bacon and eggs in the morning.

A small nuclear reactor under the bonnet and I could drive the van refuelling every 10,000,000 miles, recharge my iPhone in 0.00001 seconds and nuke my bacon and eggs for breakfast!

But you would Glow Brighter than your

Right. 80 miles is quite a long way away from the 300 miles they initially announced. Also:

« a speed limiter that restricts the van to 56mph is fitted as standard to help maintain battery range. ».

I understand why they didn’t bother selling a Cali version of this.

that 80 Mile range is with brand new batteries in top top condition.

Give it a few years and you’ll struggle to get it off your driveway and back on.

Turn the lights on and stereo, heater and charge your phone, you might get to the shops and back !

 

[WelshGas]

Having just driven across Germany the number of HGVs on the road is astounding. How they are ever going to move those away from IC fuels is beyond me.

 

[Perfectos]

Having just driven across Germany the number of HGVs on the road is astounding. How they are ever going to move those away from IC fuels is beyond me.

I had a similar thought when I was driving the opposite way up the M20 recently when it was being used as a lorry park, you can’t quite get your head around how many HGV can occupy a relatively small section of road over a relatively short space of time, particularly when you then start thinking about Europe wide / world wide

 

[WelshGas]

I had a similar thought when I was driving the opposite way up the M20 recently when it was being used as a lorry park, you can’t quite get your head around how many HGV can occupy a relatively small section of road over a relatively short space of time, particularly when you then start thinking about Europe wide / world wide

Near Hamburg the inner lane was restricted to HGVs , nose to tail for 20+ miles . If travelling on the autobahns and travelling at 100kph you rarely spend 5 minutes in the inner lane before pulling out to pass 2 or 3 HGVs.

 

[Amarillo]

Having just driven across Germany the number of HGVs on the road is astounding. How they are ever going to move those away from IC fuels is beyond me.

They’ll dig up the hard shoulder (again) and convert it into an HGV only lane with overhead electricity, like a train or trolley bus. Overhead power will recharge the HGV’s battery to allow the last 50 miles off the motorway to be battery powered.

The UK will (as usual) do it differently from the rest of Europe and power HGVs from a roadside rail.

 

[clarinetbcn]

They’ll dig up the hard shoulder (again) and convert it into an HGV only lane with overhead electricity, like a train or trolley bus. Overhead power will recharge the HGV’s battery to allow the last 50 miles off the motorway to be battery powered.

The UK will (as usual) do it differently from the rest of Europe and power HGVs from a roadside rail.

However, the contact point for the roadside rail must be applied for, and applications will only be processed for those who can prove that they attended a cheese and wine/birthday party event at 10 Downing during “lockdown.” The first batch of 10,000 authorizations are currently sold out.

 

[WelshGas]

They’ll dig up the hard shoulder (again) and convert it into an HGV only lane with overhead electricity, like a train or trolley bus. Overhead power will recharge the HGV’s battery to allow the last 50 miles off the motorway to be battery powered.

The UK will (as usual) do it differently from the rest of Europe and power HGVs from a roadside rail.

However, the contact point for the roadside rail must be applied for, and applications will only be processed by those who can prove that they attended a cheese and wine/birthday party event at 10 Downing during “lockdown.” The first batch of 10,000 authorizations are currently sold out.

 

[Wildcamper]

They’ll dig up the hard shoulder (again) and convert it into an HGV only lane with overhead electricity, like a train or trolley bus. Overhead power will recharge the HGV’s battery to allow the last 50 miles off the motorway to be battery powered.

The UK will (as usual) do it differently from the rest of Europe and power HGVs from a roadside rail.

 

[Wildcamper]

Reinvest the railways. Pre the Beeching cuts the railway network reached almost every corner of the UK. If this still existed goods could be easily transported just about everywhere and tens of thousands of trucks could be removed from the road network.

 

[Calimili]

Having just driven across Germany the number of HGVs on the road is astounding. How they are ever going to move those away from IC fuels is beyond me.

on the A5 in Germany, just south of Frankfurt they have built in 2020 power lines on the right lane of a 4 lane stretch of highway, for hybrid trucks. It's a test 5km long . It required 229 pylons for at a total cost of 14.5 millions €. To electrify the entire autobahn 1 million pylons are needed, please feel free to do the math. Of course you would have to find a way to produce all the electricity needed to begin with, and it must come from renewable, green sources, otherwise what's the point?
After 2 years of tests, it has been deemed uneconomical.

E-Highway seit Jahresbeginn ohne Strom: Was wird aus der Elektroautobahn auf der A5?

Seit Jahresbeginn 2025 ist der "E-Highway" auf der Autobahn A5 südlich von Frankfurt ohne Strom. Das Projekt, das unter dem Namen ELISA ("elektrifizierter, innovativer Schwerverkehr auf Autobahnen") durchgeführt wurde, diente seit 2019 der Erprobung von Oberleitungstechnologie für den...

www.auto-motor-und-sport.de

 

[Amarillo]

Reinvest the railways. Pre the Beeching cuts the railway network reached almost every corner of the UK. If this still existed goods could be easily transported just about everywhere and tens of thousands of trucks could be removed from the road network.

Isn’t that part of the point in HS2? Create more capacity for freight on low speed railway?

I hope they are not spending £100bn just to shave 30 minutes off the journey from London to Birmingham.

 

[Dill Tart]

Typical holiday. 1st Night Whitby Yorkshire 299 miles from home

We met friends recently for a weekend at a pub in the Lake District, they chose the pub because it had a charging point for their electric iPace Jag, even better a back up charging point at the village hall. Guess what, neither were working! They had to charge their car with an extension cable from their room at 3 miles charge per hour. We had to ferry them around for the weekend in our diesel camper as they needed 48 hours to build up sufficient charge to get home.
I’ll wait a few years until the tech has moved on and the price has come down. Living the life right now and enjoying every moment.

 

[Amarillo]

on the A5 in Germany, just south of Frankfurt they have built in 2020 power lines on the right lane of a 4 lane stretch of highway, for hybrid trucks. It's a test 5km long . It required 229 pylons for at a total cost of 14.5 millions €. To electrify the entire autobahn 1 million pylons are needed, please feel free to do the math. Of course you would have to find a way to produce all the electricity needed to begin with, and it must come from renewable, green sources, otherwise what's the point?
After 2 years of tests, it has been deemed uneconomical.

E-Highway seit Jahresbeginn ohne Strom: Was wird aus der Elektroautobahn auf der A5?

Seit Jahresbeginn 2025 ist der "E-Highway" auf der Autobahn A5 südlich von Frankfurt ohne Strom. Das Projekt, das unter dem Namen ELISA ("elektrifizierter, innovativer Schwerverkehr auf Autobahnen") durchgeführt wurde, diente seit 2019 der Erprobung von Oberleitungstechnologie für den...

www.auto-motor-und-sport.de

There are around 400 trolley bus systems in cities around the world. If they weren’t economically viable they wouldn’t have endured 140 years.

The problem of electricity production is a red herring. Electricity use in Europe has plummeted over the last ten years. And although stepping up production significantly could take a decade or more, that is about how long it might take to electrify Europe’s motorways.

I’m not saying that electrified motorways will be the future, only that it could be the future.

 

[Algor]

However, the contact point for the roadside rail must be applied for, and applications will only be processed by those who can prove that they attended a cheese and wine/birthday party event at 10 Downing during “lockdown.” The first batch of 10,000 authorizations are currently sold out.

There are still spaces available for a beer & curry event in Durham.

 

[couplands]

You will find used Oceans up for over £80k, so £85k for a new Buzz Cali sounds plausible.

A 4Motion Cali Ocean is £80k list today with no options. I'm hoping the EV Cali is here sooner rather than later....

 

[Borris]

Just my view but electrifying everything isn't the answer, its merely a trendy "sticking plaster" that shifts the pollution from the tail pipe to somewhere else less obvious.

Anyway if the vast majority of our national vehicle fleet along with both commercial and domestic energy needs become dependant on electricity then IMO, we would be placing our nation in a very precarious and vunerable position. These future problems would be bad enough if our utilities including electricity generating capabilities were still in public hands but alas that ship sailed long ago.

Leaving that last point to one side, I'm no expert so may be wrong but this "all eggs in one basket" approach to vehicle development is for me at least, very worrying. The Government's banning of the sale of new zero emissision hybrid cars from 2035 is in my opinion extremely concerning. For me it's nothing short of an act of sheer folly. The effect on the motor industry must have been to kill all future R n D work not to mention the valuable work that could have continued on ICE engine emission development. I am certain that this myopic polilcy will lead to big trouble ahead. For that reason and the fact that there are still too many un-answered questions relating to EV adoption, I will be sticking with ICE for the time being.

And another thing, if anyone is changing to EV ownership due to the lower running costs then that "honeymoon period" is already coming to an end. With ever greater EV use, that growing "Black Hole" in Government revenue receipts will become a huge problem and will need to be filled. That in turn will dictate that the current financial advantages of owning an EV will quickly disappear. With a reducing ICE fleet the ability to raise that tax deficit from further penalising demon diesels etc will quickly become impossible and once that good old cash cow starts to dry up the EV will start to become demonised in some way to replace that lost tax revenue. The reasons they come up with aren't in themselves important but watch this space as it's only a matter of time. And all this will happen along side spiralling energy costs!

 

[66tim99]

Isn’t that part of the point in HS2? Create more capacity for freight on low speed railway?

Almost the entire point of HS2 - to create capacity for passengers and freight on classic rail.
Some have suggested it was mis-named. If you’re building a new railway it might as well be fast (and that attracts city-city travellers to use it for a small premium, rather than trundle down on classic rail, and as HS2 have committed to 100% renewable energy, reduce their carbon footprint).
But a more accurate name might have been High Capacity 2 (not as sexy though)