We analysed the electrical systems people design in VoltPlan for camper vans, boats, and off-grid builds. Two findings stand out: not one plan across nearly 20,000 sessions includes a generator, and three out of four skip the inverter entirely. The modern mobile electrical system has settled on a new standard — lithium, solar, DC-only — and left the old assumptions behind.
Percentages refer to finished plans (those where at least one component was placed). See methodology at the bottom.
Across nearly 20,000 planning sessions, not one person designed a system with a generator. Not rare — zero. The combination of LiFePO4 storage, solar, and DC-DC alternator charging has made the backup generator conceptually invisible to anyone planning a modern off-grid build.
The inverter — which converts 12 V DC to 230 V AC — appears in only 23% of finished plans. The other 77 % run everything at 12 V DC. Modern appliances (USB chargers, LED lighting, 12 V compressor fridges) have made AC genuinely optional in mobile builds.
One in three plans wires in dedicated USB charging — the 5th-most-placed item across the whole dataset, ahead of the alternator, MPPT controllers and mains chargers. Builders skip the AC detour entirely: 12 V bus → USB → phone, no inverter in between.
89% of detectable first-pick batteries are LiFePO4. Lead-acid, AGM and gel barely register in new DIY plans. Five years ago this ratio would have been reversed.
Battery banks appear in ~92 % of finished plans, solar PV in only ~59 %. DIY builders treat storage as the foundation, not the add-on, and add panels as needed.
Median plan: 2.4 kWh of LiFePO4 paired with 200 W of solar — roughly two 100 Ah / 12 V batteries plus two monocrystalline panels. A clear emerging blueprint for the entry-level build.
The top-decile plan stores 7.7 kWh or more, and the largest plan in the dataset packs 31.2 kWh fed by 1800 W of solar. That is small-house territory built on van-grade hardware.
Median plan size: 9 components, top decile reaches 15. Whether for a weekend van or a permanent off-grid cabin, the structural complexity is remarkably uniform.
The most-placed components include the LiFePO 200 Ah battery, Victron's SmartSolar MPPT 75/15, the Blue Smart IP22 mains charger and the Orion-Tr 12/12-18 DC-DC charger — exactly what the open-market price competition has driven down to commodity.
Share of finished plans containing each component class. Hover a row for context.
How often DIY plans wire in dedicated USB charging — versus how often they include a mains inverter.
Use-case mix, measured at plan-start (the entry point the visitor chose).
The dense cluster sits at 200–400 W of panels and 2–4 kWh of battery — the modern weekend-van archetype. Outliers up to 1800 W and 31.2 kWh point at permanent off-grid installations being designed with the same toolset.
Most-placed components, ranked. Two patterns: (a) Victron dominates the active-electronics shortlist (three of the top ten), and (b) the rest is generic-LiFePO + monocrystalline, exactly what the open-market price competition has driven down to commodity.
For magazine and podcast use. Tested for length and tone across four angles.
Off-grid / energy pressAcross nearly 20,000 electrical planning sessions, not a single person designed a system with a generator. The backup generator has exited the modern off-grid build — entirely.
Tech / sustainabilityThree out of four self-designed mobile electrical systems skip the inverter and run everything at 12 V DC. Modern appliances have made AC conversion genuinely optional.
Consumer-tech pressUSB now appears in more than twice as many DIY mobile-electrical plans as the inverter does. The 12 V bus charges the phone directly — no AC, no wall wart, no conversion loss.
Camper / vanlife / marine pressAcross self-designed mobile-electrical builds, lithium iron phosphate has all but replaced lead-acid as the first-pick chemistry. Builders are sizing storage first and solar second.
Sources. Snapshot of all electrical plans drafted in VoltPlan from launch through June 2026, plus matching site analytics for the same window. Snapshot taken on 2026-06-29.
Dataset size (for reader judgement only — not for headline use). Site analytics during the window: 17,062 site visitors and 19,768 planning sessions. Production database during the same window: 184 plans saved with at least one component placed. Component-, battery- and solar-distribution percentages are computed over those 184 saved plans.
Saved-plan undercount. Only plans the user explicitly saved reach the database. People who build a plan locally and close the tab without saving are invisible to us, so the saved-plan count is a floor, not a true completion figure. We therefore do not report a visitor-to-completion conversion rate. Sample size for the percentages is small — treat figures as directional, not statistically tight.
Use-case split applies to plan starts, not finished plans. The use-case category (camper / boat / off-grid / generic) is captured at the entry point the visitor chose. The saved-plan dataset is not classified by use case, so we do not cite use-case-specific percentages on the finished plans.
"DC bus on 12 V" vs "pure DC". Plans are tagged 12 V when at least one 12 V DC component is present. AC voltages are not in scope of the analyser, so a plan can carry both a 12 V DC bus and an AC pathway via an inverter — those ~18 % with an inverter are a subset of the ~98 % with a 12 V bus, not a contradiction.
No PII. Owner IDs, share tokens and free-text descriptions are not exported beyond aggregate counts.