Went on a tour of the Boxabl factory in North Las Vegas, NV. (5/5/22)
Unfortunately my tour time was close to lunchtime, so the production line was quite. I really woulda liked to see them in action.
I found out some very interesting things on this tour. They are still working on automating the assembly line, so many tasks are still done manually and labor intensive, but they are working with assembly line engineers from Porche on process/flow of the line, to increase the production rates greatly. And they are currently working at building out the next factory which will be 3x the size (rumored to also be in Nevada the Las Vegas area).
Recently finished the 100th unit, working thru their 156 unit government contract (update: found info online that says was for Dept of Defense, I thought it was FEMA). These are v1.5 design (v1.0 was orig proof of concept) and there will probably changes/improvements to v2.0 when they move on to start production on units for the general public.
There are currently 80k on the waiting list, but what I didn’t know, most people on the list have not put down deposits. So if you put down $200 or $5k, that bumps you up on the list. Also once they start getting state approvals, people from those first states (projected to be NV, CA, and AZ) will get bumped up on the list too. (update: found online that only 4k ppl put $ down (out of the 80k, or now rumored to be 100k list))
The build materials look to be good quality. The walls, floor and roof are constructed with about a 5″ foam core (which has pre-drilled holes for running utilities) sandwiched between (galvanized?) metal exterior cladding and an engineered material (like engineered vinyl flooring) for interior walls (see cross-section pic below).
There are custom hinges for connecting each panel, which has a locking design with two rubber gaskets that interlock to make a weather tight seal (other cross-section pic below).
The folded up and packed bld measures 8.5′ wide (so no “Wide Load” and pilot cars needed), 20′ long, but approx 13′ high, so lowboy trailers are currently needed to ship. I was told that they are working on a custom trailer to transport these, which the hope is to either have their own shipping service, or possibly will rent them out to buyers who have HD Dualie trucks. I think they said the finished unit weighs in at 15k pounds.
They had a demo unit in the parking lot to tour – the wall of glass sliders is just for tradeshow marketing purposes, the real units have a solid wall with two windows on that side. The ceiling height inside is 9′.
They will come with service connections for power, water, and sewer. It comes with a mini-split a/c unit and a tankless hot water heater.
Inside is a full bath (toilet, sink, shower included) and kitchen (fridge, microwave, oven, sink included). Bed, couch, and room divider not included – see my low quality video I took below. All light fixtures are led.
Here is my (very amateur quality) video that I was able to shoot inside the demo Casita they have in the HQ parking lot. BTW they told me this unit remains unlocked and open, so anyone can just come by and take a look and walk thru it, not needing to have a reservation for a tour.
[ I’m having technical issues embedding a youtube video into this page, so click here and a new tab should open with the youtube video ]
And here’s a vid/animation from Boxabl showing how the thing unfolds at the build site…
[ and here is the other video: click here and a new tab should open with the youtube video ]
Found another video they posted of a flythru of the factory
(click/tap on thumbnails to see larger pics)