Modvans camper van company

[haven]

Modvans is a new camper van upfitter in Ventura, CA. The company wants to build modular and modern vans, hence the name.
http://www.modvans.com




So far they have a single prototype, built in a long wheelbase, low roof Ford Transit. The company adds a pop up roof and modular interior. The web site has a pretty complete description of the van's features
http://www.modvans.com/cv1/tabs/floorplan

Pricing for replicas of the prototype starts at $65,000 for five people who sign up through Kickstarter. That price includes the van. The company expects to launch the Kickstarter campaign on June 15. You can sign up as an "early adopter" without financial commitment here
http://www.modvans.com/how-to-buy

After the initial production run, the price threatens to go up to $80k. An aftermarket 4x4 conversion is available for $13k (probably by Quigley). 3.2L Diesel engine is also a Ford factory option.

 

[pjtezza]

@haven, thanks for taking the time to write this post!

PJ (founder of ModVans)

 

[southpier]

is there any company which doesn't claim heritage with VW vans?

 

[pjtezza]

is there any company which doesn't claim heritage with VW vans?

I'm not sure what you mean. ModVans is a brand new company so, at least in our case, we aren't claiming any type of heritage.

 

[IdaSHO]

From what I can see, it looks like a great setup




FWIW, being on not-so-great internet, some of the pages are painfully slow to load.

one page I hit was:
http://www.modvans.com/cv1/floorplan-items/popupTop

I imagine the others are similar, but I simply dont have the patience to watch them load.

Optimizing the photos for web would help a ton.

I mean, do you REALLY need these photos to be 2.5 + megs and 4000 x 3000 pixels? :Wow1:

https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/...c/img/cv1/floorplan_items/popupTop/photo4.JPG


Just trying to help :chef:

 

[pjtezza]

FWIW, being on not-so-great internet, some of the pages are painfully slow to load.
one page I hit was:
http://www.modvans.com/cv1/floorplan-items/popupTop

Thanks for the kind words and detailed feedback. You are correct about optimizing the photos, but I can explain why I did it that way: The way I coded the HTML, "retina" displays like those on iPhone, Samsung, Macbook and MS Surface will render the photos at their full resolution. For example, in the HTML layout, the photo might occupy 500x500 virtual pixels, but a 4x retina display can actually render a 2000x2000 photo in that 500x500 space. Believe it or not, some of those giant photos still aren't big enough for the highest end 5k iMac displays! There is a way to send the smallest number of pixels necessary, rather than sending the full image to every device, but that would have taken a lot of time to implement. I did some performance testing with various simulated connection speeds and decided that the current trade-off would work until I had finished some critical work on the prototype and had time to go back and further optimize the website.

 

[southpier]

I'm not sure what you mean. ModVans is a brand new company so, at least in our case, we aren't claiming any type of heritage.

http://www.modvans.com/cv1/floorplan-items/chassis

 

[pjtezza]

http://www.modvans.com/cv1/floorplan-items/chassis

This first paragraph on this page is explaining the history (with a very broad brush) of camper vans: "Many years ago, the VW microbus was the camper van base of choice." The photos go with the narrative. I don't agree that this page is claiming VW heritage.

 

[EV_Grey]

Well, that looks nice !

I like the fact that everything can be taken out of the van if need be !

I have some questions about insulation and airflow. Is the insulation that of the standard vehicle or do you add a layer ?
Will you provide insulated covers for the windows ? (thin insulation+reflective foil put in place by magnets)

Is there a roof fan, or can the AC unit act as one ? What about cooking inside ? With the bed just on top, I would expect the fumes to rise an make the bed smelly in the long term

 

[southpier]

This first paragraph on this page is explaining the history (with a very broad brush) of camper vans: "Many years ago, the VW microbus was the camper van base of choice." The photos go with the narrative. I don't agree that this page is claiming VW heritage.

we can always agree to disagree; it's a big world.

 

[dazdconfsd]

Thanks for the kind words and detailed feedback. You are correct about optimizing the photos, but I can explain why I did it that way: The way I coded the HTML, "retina" displays like those on iPhone, Samsung, Macbook and MS Surface will render the photos at their full resolution. For example, in the HTML layout, the photo might occupy 500x500 virtual pixels, but a 4x retina display can actually render a 2000x2000 photo in that 500x500 space. Believe it or not, some of those giant photos still aren't big enough for the highest end 5k iMac displays! There is a way to send the smallest number of pixels necessary, rather than sending the full image to every device, but that would have taken a lot of time to implement. I did some performance testing with various simulated connection speeds and decided that the current trade-off would work until I had finished some critical work on the prototype and had time to go back and further optimize the website.

Perhaps you could consider linking to larger scale images instead? Maybe in a gallery form? It would improve the responsiveness of your site and allow those who actually want the extra detail to get it.

 

[pjtezza]

Well, that looks nice !

I like the fact that everything can be taken out of the van if need be !

I have some questions about insulation and airflow. Is the insulation that of the standard vehicle or do you add a layer ?
Will you provide insulated covers for the windows ? (thin insulation+reflective foil put in place by magnets)

Is there a roof fan, or can the AC unit act as one ? What about cooking inside ? With the bed just on top, I would expect the fumes to rise an make the bed smelly in the long term

Thanks - being able to take everything out and use the van for cargo or passengers is a unique feature. It puts some constraints on the design, but I think it is well worth it. Removable components also lets you pick and choose your configuration. For example, if you don't want the toilet, you can remove it (and the surrounding walls). If you wanted to haul bikes or motorcycles, the driver's side cabinet can be removed.

We start with a bare, uninsulated cargo van, then add lots of insulation. On http://www.modvans.com/cv1/floorplan-items/heaterVent, you can see that we've tested the CV1 down to 5F.

We will offer as options two types of window covers: 1) Thin covers for 3 season camping (fabric covered low-e or similar) 2) Thick covers for winter camping. The thin covers are attached with suction cups. The thick covers are needed to camp at low temperatures in the pop-up. They take up some cargo space (they stack on top of the driver's side cabinet), so you wouldn't want to take them unless you need them. They are primarily friction fit.

Both the AC unit and the furnace can be run as fans.

You can cook with the bed down and the slider closed. In practice, heat and fumes aren't the problem that they might appear to be. If you are going to cook something particularly messy or smelly, I would definitely attach the popup bed to the ceiling (which you'd probably do in any case so you can stand), fold up the downstairs bed (if you have it out) and, if possible, open the slider.

 

[pjtezza]

Perhaps you could consider linking to larger scale images instead? Maybe in a gallery form? It would improve the responsiveness of your site and allow those who actually want the extra detail to get it.

IMO, the best way to solve this is to use the new srcset attribute for <img> tags: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/img#attr-srcset. With srcset, the browser decides what image to download based on the device's pixel density, connection bandwidth, etc..

 

[dazdconfsd]

IMO, the best way to solve this is to use the new srcset attribute for <img> tags: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/img#attr-srcset. With srcset, the browser decides what image to download based on the device's pixel density, connection bandwidth, etc..

While that may be a nice properly correct solution, the subject came up because a visitor to your site was having performance issues with it. Something to consider.

 

[pjtezza]

While that may be a nice properly correct solution, the subject came up because a visitor to your site was having performance issues with it. Something to consider.

I agree that it needs to be fixed and I appreciate the detailed feedback and suggestions. When I do get the chance to fix it, I will do it with srcset because that will take about the same amount of time as "linking to larger scale images."