the rise of vagabondchad

prediction: over the next 10 (20 at most) years there is going to be a rise in neo-nomadicism, which will be enabled by electric vans/campers that can be charged through solar panels.

the EV Solar Kits startup believes their solar panels will add up to 60 miles of range per day to a tesla. this is, already, tremendous; the premise here of course is that if your daily driving is less than 60mi, you could use solar indefinitely.

currently, the biggest barriers to van living are the lack of an address, proximity to a gas source, ventilation and water/waste disposal; in other words, if you try to sleep in your van you can't run air conditioning or heating, but with an electric system you can. greater solar efficiency also means that this charging can be done anywhere, as opposed to at depots. finally, the water/waste solution is largely already covered by existing camper solutions, but it will be even easier to deal with in the future.

what this will do, then, is increase demand for where you can park a vehicle indefinitely and what you can use as an address. this is already the basic concept of an RV park, but not quite, because most "mobile homes" are in fact not very mobile and would break down if moved.

I suspect there will be increased demand for something that amounts to a charging station, parking spot and PO box combination; if a typical parking garage can hold 400 cars and charges $200/month for this service combination, this is a little under $1M in 2022 USD of annual revenue. this is not accounting for the fact that this could be built with much less cost than a conventional parking lot, both in terms of building materials and because it wouldn't need to be located near a high-cost area.

regardless, we are already seeing a kind of digital nomad airbnb-er who doesn't bother with renting at all. I think that as more very basic just-existing functions are taken care of by electric vans/campers and as the cost goes down this lifestyle will become increasingly more common.