Power inefficiency in car campers and micro-campers

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Just getting something off my chest. 

I watch quite a few tours (and 'making of') videos on YouTube about micro-campervans, typically on Citroen Berlingo or Ford Transit Connect, and a common feature that they seem to lift from larger campers and motorhomes is generating mains electricity using an inverter, ostensibly 'to power a laptop'.

Sound OK, right? I mean, a laptop needs mains power to charge? Nope. Not even close. Just because a laptop computer comes with a mains brick and plug doesn't mean that it's designed to charge from 'AC' power.

The 'brick' bit in the lead is a step down from 110/240V AC to (typically) 15V DC. And it's an inefficient step down, as you'll have noted in the way your mains brick gets warm when the laptop is charging.

So then the plan in these micro-campers is to have the 12V (or so) DC from the car/van's battery (or pair of batteries) stuffed into an inverter, a lossy and inefficient device (again, it gets warm) that creates 110/240V (depending on country), which the user then uses as the source for the equally lossy laptop mains charging brick, all to go back to DC and roughly the same voltage as they started with!

At which point I should point out that all laptop manufacturers make a 12V 'car' charging lead for their computers. Yes, that's another $20 or £20 in terms of accessory costs, but using the vehicle's native 12V (or so) DC power is so much more efficient.

Although I haven't ventured yet down the micro-camper route, I think along these lines in my 'mobile office', highlighted in video form below. You may wish to jump to section 3, at about the 2:45 mark. Note that my solution is all DC and note the laptop and 2-in-1 power, etc.

In fact, since this video was shot I've now upgraded my white MacBook to something newer, a M1 Macbook Air, which charges from USB Type C, just as my Surface Go. 

So I'm using smartphones, tablets, laptops, all without a hint of mains power. Without any inefficiencies - and when you're vehicle based, efficiency and conserving power can be critically important.

I can understand huge motorhomes wanting to provide 'all the (electrical) comforts of home', but in smaller vehicles, why the dickens can't most designers and owners realise that AC/mains power is almost never needed?

The other critical resource when micro-camping is space, and an inverter plus mains sockets all use this up - unnecessarily. Just keep everything DC, keep everything 12-15V, keep everything USB, keep everything simple.

It works for me and I'm confident that it would scale up to your typical Ford Transit Connect conversion.

PS. If you like this feature and want to support my work then please do so here via PayPal. Thanks.

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