So many choices: Build options for the Noovo Plus

There are many options to choose from at Noovo. I’ll walk you through what we chose, at least tentatively.

The van itself
First you choose your van style. You have the Lite, the Pop (seems to be a Lite + pop-up tent on top), the newly released but not yet in production Next (their Sprinter van), and our van, the Plus. It’s the best one but, sure, pick something else if you like. The base price on the Plus is $186,700.

Unlike the other models, the Plus comes in two versions. There is a lounge-bed-only version, where you have to assemble and disassemble the lounge/bed twice a day. Very much not what we want. The other option is the lift bed, where you can leave the bed as you left it and raise it up out of sight, revealing a beautiful lounge area waiting for you every morning. That’s the one. The lift bed adds $7,200 to the price and is worth every penny.

You have a choice of four colors. I find color offerings on vans (and cars) utterly boring. Various shades of neutral. Here we have an option for silver, light gray, dark gray, and a warm tone they call “cashmere.” Vans cry out for more individuality, more personality. Sigh. I don’t love any of them, but we can’t decide (although we’ve ruled out silver). In November, my wife and I will stop by the Noovo plant to see all of the colors in person and will make our final choice then. There is no cost difference between the colors, but note two things. First, I believe the “Noovo” badges on the van are black on the cashmere color, and maybe on the silver, too. Their website does not show this correctly. Two, your choice of color is a choice you will have to make early in the build process, so that your van can be reserved. The other options that follow can wait until just before the build, but you must choose the color many months before you see your van.

Making the van better
Do you like getting stuck? One Noovo owner got stuck on wet grass. With front-wheel drive and all that weight toward the back, I believe it. You can’t do a whole lot with a ProMaster (unlike the Sprinter) to make it more off-road worthy, but you can do the obvious and upgrade the tires. If you choose to upgrade through Noovo, you get the tires (as of this writing, they will use Goodrich All-Terrain tires, which are good) and you will get new, darker-colored wheels (often called “rims”), too, with Noovo branding on them. The cost is $3500. You can get the same tires from Costco, on sale, for less than $1500 (don’t forget, you need five of them). The balance of the cost is for the wheels. (Note: If you buy the tires elsewhere, double-check with the shop to ensure their lift can handle the weight of the van, something like 8500 pounds. Tell them 10,000 just to be sure.

How about an aluminum box on the back? Storage is tight on a van, any van, so adding a box is almost a requirement. On their web page, Noovo offers a Rover box, which Rover calls their Tactical box, for $3500. Noovo is also offering the new Rover box, the larger Titan, though that option is not listed under the Plus model. I was quoted $3850 for the Titan. There’s a ladder and tire combo as well, bringing your tire up from under the back of the van and putting it on the more accessible rear door. With the ladder, you can easily access the roof of your van, though I’m sure I’d fall off if I did. The tires and wheels are a “for sure” option, the ladder I’m still thinking about. The ladder by itself is $2150, and the combo is $6500 with the Rover Tactical box. Probably something similar with the Titan.

They offer a “Swing Away Bike Rack,” but that’s just a Yakima. Buy it on sale at REI or, better yet, look into other brands, especially if you have a heavy ebike. Top brands include Quickrstuff, 1Up, Kuat (see their Piston Pro), and Rocky Mounts. One of the founders of Noovo mentioned that they were thinking of switching from Yakima to something else, and he mentioned Kuat and Rocky Mounts. I ended up ordering a Quickrstuff Mach 2.0, but it hasn’t arrived yet.

It’s bigger on the inside
The interior has color options as well, although everyone seems to choose “Scandinavian Oak.” That’s all we’ve seen in person so far. The alternative that Noovo offers is an interesting one, a “Heritage Walnut,” which combines darker wood with a sage green. It is good-looking in videos, but I wonder if in person it will be too dark for such a small space? When we visit Las Vegas to pick out an exterior color, we are also going to have a good look at the Heritage Walnut. Note: If you want to see the Heritage Walnut for yourself, contact Noovo first. They build vans in batches and might not have your style of van on the production line if you show up on short notice. The Heritage Walnut adds $2500 to the price.

The Power of power
There are a few more choices to make.

The Noovo comes with one Lithionics 660 amp-hour battery, almost for sure as much as you need but, if you want to double that by adding a second battery, you can. The price is, as of this writing, $10,000 (enough to make you wince, huh?). The smart move is to pass this one by, use the van for a while, and then you’ll know what you need. Adding a second battery down the road is easy.

The most important choice
Toilet? Some people use the shower area as storage—maybe a smart move, but maybe not a move your spouse will be very happy about. Don’t make these decisions on your own. The standard toilet on the Noovo is a cassette-style toilet, where you use water to flush into a five-gallon portable holding tank, which you must periodically empty (hopefully in a proper toilet or campground dump station). You also have the option of the Laveo toilet, a sort of Diaper Genie (or, if you have pets, a Liter Genie), but for humans. The waste isn’t flushed, it is wrapped in some sort of Mylar-looking material, sealing in the waste and the odors. I’m leaning this way.

Three things to note: First, you have to commit to one choice or the other. If you go with the standard cassette toilet, the toilet will be in the way, and there will be holes for the plumbing in your shower, which will be an issue should you ever take it out. If you go with the Laveo, there will be no holes in your shower—the Laveo is battery-powered and you empty it by removing a trash bag containing the waste every dozen “flushes.” (The manufacturer claims, unconvincingly, fifteen.) You can’t go to a cassette toilet very easily if you don’t go that way from the beginning.

Two, the Laveo’s cartridges—which contain the Mylar-like material—are expensive. It works out to about $1.50 a “flush.” That’s bad, but also good. It is bad in that, wow, that will really add up, and doesn’t it seem a little goofy to spend hundreds of dollars a month on flushing your toilet? It is good in that the high cost will encourage you (and your spouse) to use one of the many toilets available to you in your surrounding area. They are out there. Use them.

Third, there is a third toilet option. Noovo’s Next is being shown with a silver (I assume stainless steel) toilet unit—the brand name escapes me. The idea is that you can easily move it out of the shower stall for a more roomy shower experience. A great solution for traveling solo and maybe beyond. Of course, once you are just setting toilets in the shower space with no plumbing required (such as the Laveo and the silver option) you can use anything you want. Maybe there is something better?

The cassette toilet is standard, the Laveo adds $500 (and comes with three Mylar cartridges, I think), and the new silver one is, well, who knows.

That’s more words on toilets than I have ever written before in my life. #vanlife

Seats
The front seats in the Noovo are nice, but do you want to know what is really nice? White leather seats. If you want to be cool (Fonzi cool, not air conditioning cool), get the white leather. I certainly am (getting the seats, that is, and, hopefully, thereby getting more cool). I spoke with an owner who raved at the ability of the white leather to avoid stains—they used coal tar as their example. I want to believe! Add $1250, which is the price of cool.

What’s on TV?
Starlink? Yes, please, despite Elon Musk. Starlink offers two sizes of “dish.” There is a High-Performance option and a Roam option. The details of the plans offered by Starlink change now and again, but Roam is probably the best option for most people, and both options allow connectivity while moving (that’s new for the cheaper Roam). High-Performance is $2300 while the Roam is $1150. We will go with the Roam.

We live on our screens and you get another one in the Noovo, too. It’s a 32-inch TV on an articulating mount. It folds into a slight cavity of the wall of the lounge, and you can swing it out as desired. As of this writing, the TV is a Samsung, one of the “Frame” units, which doubles as a digital picture frame. It’s not the best 32-inch TV out there (there is also a 4k Samsung that you might consider, if you buy your own). Hard-core media creators-types might want to pop a $5000 Apple XDR screen in there. I think it will fit, though it has no TV capabilities, and it’s hard to hook up to Apple TV. A replacement is rumored to be coming out in the spring. Perhaps Tim Cook will consider my needs and release something perfect for my Noovo.

It’s important to note that you must must must remember to fold the TV away before lowering the lift bed, or you will hear the awful sound of something breaking, very loud in the small, enclosed space of your van. That sound will haunt your dreams and your marriage for years to come. You should also know that you can’t watch the TV when the bed is lowered—the bed blocks the screen, even when at its lowest position. I spend too much time looking at screens during the day, so for me this is a feature, not a bug.

The secret menu
That’s a lot to read and a lot to ponder. But we aren’t done yet, though if you are following along on the Noovo web page, you might think you are. There are secret, off-menu options. I’ve discovered two of them.

The Noovo comes with solar, but you might want to plug in an auxiliary solar panel, something you position on the ground to help charge those batteries when you are out boondocking. If you don’t need the $10,000 second battery but you might need more than the single battery offers every once in a while, get the external solar plug. There is no extra cost.

Last on our list (finally!) is the induction cooktop. The Noovo comes standard with the cooktop embedded in the countertop. To me, that seems a little in the way. You could use that space, when not cooking for something else, say a stand-up desk area or Lego model-building workspace. A camper van lives and dies by its double and triple-duty spaces, and it would be nice to have choices here. One option, not really available, is the hidden cooktop, like what Noovo is showing with their Next van. The cooktop is mounted underneath the countertop, invisible, with little indicators telling you where to position your cookware. That may or may not be an option on the Plus by the time our build starts in February. But what is an option is simply not to have a cooktop there at all, just to leave the countertop, uninterrupted. You can keep the induction cooktop in a drawer (they still give you one) or plug it in on the fold-down outdoor table (to avoid cooking smells/mess inside the van), or take it to a picnic table with an extension cord. A lot of flexibility and a lot of newly usable counter space. I think I like it.

And that’s it. With my selections, the base price of the Noovo Plus rises from $186,700 to just over $200,000. Now I just have to wait until March.