Knaus E.Power Drive

With diesel’s days numbered, Knaus is looking to the future…

UNDER current UK government plans, sales of new petrol and diesel cars ( including campervans and motorhomes, it is assumed) will end by 2030, with plug-in hybrid vehicles allowed for a further five years. We won’t go into the challenges here for the national grid, or the charging network and our motor industry, nor even the question of vehicle recharging on campsites and the issue of range anxiety, but instead join German firm, Knaus, in a bit of crystal ball-gazing.

This isn’t the first electric leisure vehicle – we tested a Nissan e-NV200-based camper from Hillside Leisure back in 2015 and Iridium showed its E-Mobil to potential German customers in 2019. However, the former was small, even compared with a VW T6, and the latter was priced from €169,000. Neither could exactly be called mass market…

Not that the E.Power seen here is due in your local Knaus dealership any time soon, nor even that it’s sure to look like this when it does go into production. But the intention is there and this is the closest we’ve seen yet to a viable fullsized motorhome that doesn’t need to ever visit the derv pump.

Importantly, it looks exactly like a regular Knaus low-profile, a Van TI 650 MEG Vansation to be precise. So, this isn’t just a designer’s wacky dream of the future. Nor is it the work of Fiat, despite the Ducato cab that it inherits from the standard Vansation. Instead, Knaus – which says it couldn’t wait for Fiat – has collaborated on the project with HWA AG, a German engineering company with involvement in the Formula E race series, amongst its serious motorsport credentials.

The result looks conventional, at least until you lift the bonnet (where the diesel engine has vanished), look underneath (to see an array of batteries with a capacity of 35kWh) or jump into the cab (where the gearstick has gone AWOL and there are some new switches and controls). Crucially, the conversion to electric power is