RoadTrek's EcoTrek

[obgraham]

I thought at the time, "what was JH thinking?" He's in the business of selling new rigs, not upgrading old ones.

[gerrym51]

like everybody else

[BobB]

Originally Posted by obgraham

He's in the business of selling new rigs, not upgrading old ones.

It's a consumer society. Exactly why I will probably buy used - recent Class B, low mileage, great shape, better price from someone who has to have the newest and latest in comfort, technology, etc.

[Jostalli]

Originally Posted by obgraham

I thought at the time, "what was JH thinking?" He's in the business of selling new rigs, not upgrading old ones.

The dealer service centers would be doing the upgrading, not Roadtrek. He's selling a ~$25000 package with an enormous margin. If he doesn't end up allowing upgrades it's because he doesn't want the customer service issues with dealers and customers due to the complexity of upgrading older models.

[obgraham]

I'm very pleased with my CS ETrek. RT makes a quality product, and charges a quality sum for it.
But I think this new release is another example of hype beyond reality. It's what, only 2 weeks, and they are already backing off the initial promises.

[booster]

Originally Posted by obgraham

I'm very pleased with my CS ETrek. RT makes a quality product, and charges a quality sum for it.
But I think this new release is another example of hype beyond reality. It's what, only 2 weeks, and they are already backing off the initial promises.

At least this time they backed off quickly and didn't spend many months telling folks they were dumb and shouldn't be questioning what Roadtrek claimed.

[Arlo]

As someone who bought into the E-Trek on the Spring 2013 bloody cutting edge, my first thought was that I wouldn't want to be one of the first retrofits done by a dealer. My E-Trek has served me well, but it took a few months to work thru initial problems. Engineering a concept is one challenge, implementing it in a production line is another, and educating dealer service centers is yet another.

The I-want-this-regardless-of-price frenzy on the Roadtreking FB group was just whacky. It will be interesting to see how this works out over a year or two.

[BobB]

Originally Posted by Arlo

The I-want-this-regardless-of-price frenzy on the Roadtreking FB group was just whacky. It will be interesting to see how this works out over a year or two.

Never - buy the first version, buy the initial stock offering, buy the first edition, or - IMHO - be an early adopter. It will all sort itself out.

Patience, Grasshopper, Patience

[Nomad32]

Jim Hammill posted the ecotrek price list on the Roadtreking FB group:

https://attachment.fbsbx.com/file_do...t7vE-3P-v_hloi

[wincrasher]

Link doesn't work. Go to the Facebook page and click on the document link.

I can't make much sense of the price list - looks to me like the "system" adds around $25k or so to the van cost depending on how big you go. What I can't figure out is if you add it to the $152k etrek base price, or some other base. If you add it, you are way up into Advanced RV pricing - north of $175k! Getting crazy.

[markopolo]

Nomad - that link doesn't work for me. I couldn't find the ecotrek price list you mentioned but did find a PDF that gave a price for only the ecotrek 400 battery pack at $4,992.00

https://www.facebook.com/download/17...o%20-%20V2.pdf

Looks like $1.11 per watt hour for the Roadtrek 4.5kw/h pack compared to say the Balqon 5kw/h pack at $0.59 per watt/hour http://www.balqon.com/online-store/#...egory=12286435

Two interesting things from the facebook pdf:

Charges and discharges in any weather on earth due to Roadtreks proprietary climate systems

and

Combine with AGM with our Tandem system

Anyone know how RT is handling heating and cooling the battery packs?

I had been wondering about a split AGM / lifepo4 setup in cold climates. Your unit could function on AGM's until you get things warmed up.

It's great that more info is coming out

[booster]

Roadtrek pricing has been increasing very rapidly on lots of models. $108K MSRP for a 190P at Lake Regions. Our 07 with all options at the time was MSRP of $77K.

I have to agree that they are quickly pushing themselves into the ARV territory, and I don't think they can compete there in many ways, except for maybe delivery time.

Hammill has claimed the don't have high margins, but if they don't they either are building very inefficiently, or doing big R&D chargeback on every unit.

[wincrasher]

They are also gaining on the difference in currency. So that is padding the margin quite a bit. Just greed. They are getting what they can get, I'd do the same. But I think your number of customers goes down as the price goes up - so you can make slim margin on many, or fat margins on few.

[wincrasher]

Marco - you have to wade thru the page to find the link. It gives prices for all the sizes and parts.

Interesting on the EcoTek 400 pdf, the pictures just show what appears to be a battery box with the lithiums and wiring inside. No cooling or heating to be seen. So it may be an outboard system. But who knows? Finding the truth in Jim's statements is like a where's Waldo exercise.

[markopolo]

This must be it: https://www.facebook.com/download/16...0increases.pdf

Looks like a new Zion model is in the works:

Zion SRT (Coming soon)

[wincrasher]

Hmmm. In the Dodge product lineup, SRT is a high performance version (and probably a trademarked term). Wonder what Roadtrek is going with it?

[booster]

Originally Posted by markopolo

Anyone know how RT is handling heating and cooling the battery packs?

I had been wondering about a split AGM / lifepo4 setup in cold climates. Your unit could function on AGM's until you get things warmed up.

It's great that more info is coming out

I have also wondered about double systems with some AGM in them. The big trouble with the lithium kicking out is that you lose the battery in the system needed to activate and stabilize the engine generator. Once you have the engine generator running and stable, it will run any heaters you want, either 12v or 110v, until the lithiums reengage.

The AGM would probably be held offline on a trickle charger until needed and turned on when the cold lithium cutoff happened.

[Gryphon]

Originally Posted by wincrasher

What I can't figure out is if you add it to the $152k etrek base price, or some other base. If you add it, you are way up into Advanced RV pricing - north of $175k! Getting crazy.

It's confusing because RoadTrek uses the ETrek name to refer to both an RV model and to an addon package for some of its other models.

I think the $25K & 26K packages are new ETrek packages for the TS & CS Adventurous and SS Agile. You'd be adding that package price to the base price of one of those models; the TS Adventurous is the most expensive of the three & starts at $135K, so you'd be looking at about $161K for that one.

The $152K ETrek already has all of the ETrek package stuff built in - the only upgrade for that is the $8944 package to boost it up to 1600 battery & 600 solar.

[BobB]

Originally Posted by Gryphon

It's confusing because RoadTrek uses the ETrek name to refer to both an RV model and to an addon package for some of its other models.

I think the $25K & 26K packages are new ETrek packages for the TS & CS Adventurous and SS Agile. You'd be adding that package price to the base price of one of those models; the TS Adventurous is the most expensive of the three & starts at $135K, so you'd be looking at about $161K for that one.

The $152K ETrek already has all of the ETrek package stuff built in - the only upgrade for that is the $8944 package to boost it up to 1600 battery & 600 solar.

Gryphon

That's how I add them up.

So if I wanted a Zion with Ecotrek 400 + 200w solar, that would be $4992 + $2370 = $7362 above base MSRP of $86931?

Standard batteries on Zion are "One (1) 400 AMP AGM". What happens to those? Do you think you get a credit or does Ecotrek 400 already take that into account?

[mumkin]

On my 170, I had already ordered it with the underhood generator and solar, so the only change for the Ecotrek 200 is $2498 or the Ecotrek 400 is $4982.

Then since mine is in line already I can order the Voltrek and they will add it when it is available for the Chevy... which will hopefully be before I leave for Arizona for the winter.