Why are Aussie caravans so expensive?

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Aussies are paying more for their caravans than ever, but why are they so expensive?

You’ll easily pay at least $45,000 for an entry-level single-axle two-berth van these days. Medium to large touring vans with the works start at $60K, but most start at around $80K.

If you want to go all out, you can easily spend motorhome money on a caravan — in other words, $150,000 or more.

The biggest bucks are being outlayed for the top-shelf luxury ‘off-road’ caravans, mostly from premium Queensland brands such as Bushtracker and Kedron

Not to do outdone, Sunland has launched its own uber-luxury van, with twin slide-outs and everything else you can imagine. The price? A cool $250,000.

Also read: Top-10 priciest caravans

High price to pay

So why are more and more caravans sold in Australia with lofty six figure price tags?

For starters, there’s the gear that now goes into the average van. Up to about the early 2000s, no caravanner really expected an air-conditioner in a caravan, let alone an oven, LED TV, outdoor entertainment units, slide-out BBQs, washing machine/dryer or slide-outs.

Even a radio -- with a CD player, no less -- was considered pretty fancy.

These days, all that and more is expected in a luxury van. There are all sorts of other expensive features that manufacturers have tried such as a verandah out the front or even a spa bath but these are yet to find a ready market.

Then you get the off-road caravan: No-one imagined back in the day that you could buy a van with the sort of off-road suspension you’d see under a Dakar competition truck, but now you do with off-road caravans -- independent suspension, coil springs and twin shocks per wheel, which are a lot more expensive than old-school leaf-spring suspension.

Then there’s the signature, off-road van go-to equipment -- checker plate. Off-road vans typically have enough checker plate protection to keep an aluminium plant working overtime.

Also read: Is an off-road van worth it?

Complex electrical systems -- with multiple on-board batteries, solar panels, chargers, inverters etc -- were not even dreamt of.

All this luxury gear means that the chassis, suspension and wheels and tyres have to be stronger to carry all that weight. That adds to cost too.

High cost of labour

While we all expect more and more luxuries in caravans these days, is that really all there is to it?

Overseas, vans are much cheaper. Take for example a UK caravan, the 19ft Lunar Stellar two-berth shower/toilet van. It has most of the features you’d expect of a relatively large van, such as fridge, microwave, oven, battery charger, heating and hot water service.

Sure it’s missing the reverse-cycle air-conditioning (although it has ducted heating) and the solid chassis of an Aussie van, but its full (converted to Aussie dollars) price is $35,000.

At the premium end, you can buy a 25ft (7.8m) four-berth Lunar Delta TS in the UK for 30,000GBP ($56,000). It not only has more room and more beds than the Stellar, but it also has a central heating system.

If Euro caravans look like good buying, wait until you see what’s on offer in the USA. Much more similar in design to our market, the caravans (that in the US are called ‘travel trailers’) are bargain buys.

For example, the Rockwood Mini Lite 2109S, a 22-foot, 1900kg Tare two-berth tandem-axle shower/toilet slide-out van with all the gear, such as ducted air-conditioning, heated mattress and power awning, two LED TVs, w-ifi and twin-bowl sink.

How much, you ask --  $60,000, perhaps? Try a paltry US$22,000 (AUD$31,071).

So why don’t we just import everything we need from the USA? We don’t because by the time you add shipping, the cost of converting electrics and gas (and either getting the manufacturer to build the vans with a left or rear external or or cut in a new one), much of the price advantage is washed away.

There’s been some chat about the US market generally being less fussy about build quality than Aussies, too.

Mass production efficiencies

Then it comes down to the numbers involved. Europe and the US are much bigger markets than Australia so there are the lower costs that come with manufacturing in higher volume.

A total of 73,540 caravans were sold in Europe in 2018. US buyers towed away a huge 327,101 new caravans in the same year.

By comparison, the Australian market is tiny. Close to 14,000 caravans were built down under last year, according to Caravan Industry Association figures. When you add imported caravans the figure might rise another 1000 (if that), but it’s still significantly lower than Europe or the US.

Not only are Aussie manufacturers hit with smaller volumes, they also have to pay their workers more.  Minimum wages are higher in Australia than just about anywhere else.

In 2016, when the Fair Work Commission handed down its annual ruling on Australia’s minimum wage, the minimum wage became $17.76 per hour. At that time, the hourly rate was $14.66 for the UK, $14.98 for France and $10.08 for the US.

If you wondered why China is a growing source of RVs in Australia (as many as 10,000 campers and caravans each year) in Australia, here’s why: the minimum wage is between $1.68 and $3.93 per hour.

Profit margins used to be high (rumoured to be around $10K at dealer level for a large van) but that has withered to a much smaller figure these days.

Also factor in that there are more than 100 RV brands competing in Australia; a huge number considering our relatively small population. Although there have been a number of recent RV business collapses, while others have faltered.

Is it time for brands to amalgamate into larger, volume concerns like Jayco, to not just keep costs and prices down but for the industry to survive at all? Time will tell...