Camper van manufacturer Noovo is expanding its operations in northwest Las Vegas. It recently upgraded its manufacturing facility from 6,000 square feet to a 20,000-square-foot space to expand, with plans to add about 100 employees in the next two years. The company converts Dodge Promaster vans into small camper vans with a bed, kitchen and toilet.
Founded in March 2020 by three French friends, Benoit Lafond, Paul Aubert and Antoine Alberteau, the company had previously converted a school bus into a traveling hotel business, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal. But once the pandemic hit, they pivoted to start converting vans into camper vehicles.
Aubert said Noovo picked Las Vegas because it's the perfect location for people looking to kick off a road trip in the West. “(Las Vegas is) the entrance of the West Coast, and it’s close to national parks,” Aubert told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“When (our customers) come to pick up the vans, they fly here, and they want to make a road trip from Vegas," added Lafond.
Noovo moved into its new facility in May and has upped its production to about one van a day, Lafond said. At Noovo’s old facility it would take around a week to produce a van. Noovo offers three types of vans, and prices range from $162,000 to $185,000.
The Noovo vans are designed to go off the grid as they have a battery system that can be powered by solar panels, a heated water system with a 40 gallon water tank and Starlink WiFi. The vans also all come with a queen-sized bed, stovetop, sink, toilet, shower, and foldable desk.
“You can basically park anywhere, and you don’t need to be plugged in and using water,” Aubert said. “So you can just go in the middle of the Lake Mead (National Recreation Area), you can park and enjoy life there.”
Aubert said that most of the company’s customers are either retirees or people looking for weekend getaways, and its demand for services has stayed steady even as more people return to hybrid or in-person work schedules after the pandemic.
Noovo still has plans to grow and aims to employ hundreds of employees in the next few years and would ideally expand into a larger facility in a few years, Lafond said.