Exploring Multifunctional Use for Compact Campervans

Abstract

The project as described in this report led to the development of a seating system for a compact campervan based on the Volkswagen ID Buzz, an electric vehicle recently released by Volkswagen. It erupted from a challenge occurring at Ventje, a company manufacturing compact campervans in Culemborg. The introduction of a the new campervan, based on the ID Buzz, brought with it many challenges, one being its’ higher price and smaller formfactor. These two combined brought the concern whether this vehicle kept the same desirability as the original model, based on the VW Transporter. The opportunity that was explored for this project was whether the ID Buzz based Ventje could offer a more multifunctional character in order to utilize it’s potential as a decent family car. The analysis for the project was split up in two sections, product analysis and user analysis, which concluded that Ventje offers better camping functionality and aesthetics as opposed to the competition, who offered more comfortable back seats for use during driving and so-called versatility, meaning the van can adapt to other use cases by adding or removing components. Based on the results from the product and user analysis, the choice was made to develop a solution to add two comfortable back seats that can be integrated in the new campervan based on the ID Buzz with the aim to make it directly implementable in the interior that was designed thus far for the ID Buzz campervan, called eVentje. This led to the development of the seating system, which arguably improves the Ventje interior concept overall and improves multifunctionality of the van. The seating concept has been evaluated in a study using a 1:5 scale model, which showed that functionality of the system is not compromised, however components of the system should be designed for lightweight and ergonomically as this was still a concern among respondents.