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The Dreadnort POD Can Be Anything You Need: Perfect RV, Emergency Shelter, or Houseboat

Here’s to hoping you’re into futurist, post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk-like styling for vehicles and watercraft, because this one is a doozy. New Zealand-based Dreadnort Boats is working on something they call the POD, a very awesome-looking construction that can suit a variety of purposes, many of them relevant to our general interests.
The Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicability 16 photos
Photo: Dreadnort Boats
The Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicabilityThe Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicability
In case you’re wondering just what these purposes are, here’s a short list: the POD can work as anything from a disaster/emergency shelter to a houseboat, a trailer or a stationary glamping unit, a business venue, and pretty much anything in between you can think of. It might even work as an interplanetary rover if you give Dreadbort Boats the money and the time to develop it in this direction, the company says with a virtual wink.

Dreadnort Boats is a builder of boats, as you must’ve guessed, which came to be when Transformarine Naval Architects and Altech Marine started working together, with the explicit goal of creating “the next generation of boats, with no compromises on safety and quality.” So far, they seem to be doing a fine job at it, but in between boats, they also created a prototype for the POD, which is actually an acronym for Point Of Difference.

The POD is a pod (heh) that started out as a concept for a tsunami shelter, which experts from these two companies were tasked to design as part of a 2011 study. Further development turned it into the current POD, losing its tsunami-proof capabilities in the process, but earning a long list of others. Like, it can now be anything you’d need it to be – though not all of it at the same time.

The Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicability
Photo: Dreadnort Boats
The prototype is designed as a portable office, Dreadnort explains to one media outlet. It’s made with 5-mm marine-grade aluminum plating and 6-mm toughened safety glass for the many windows, and offers 101 square feet (9.4 square meters) of plan-view space, and 79 inches (201.5 cm) of maximum interior headroom. It weighs 1.1 tons and can be moved from place to place either on a standard boat trailer or by crane or helicopter. Whichever you can afford.

The prototype sits on adjustable legs, off the ground by 3.9 inches (10 cm), with access done by means of a two-piece gullwing door with fold-down steps. The idea is to design future PODs in the same manner. Two 150-W solar panels rigged to a 200 Ah battery and a 350-W inverter provide power, and the interior comes with sockets and USB outlets, overhead lighting, and mood lighting.

Perhaps more impressive than the styling of the POD concept, or even this first prototype is the possible functionality of such a portable structure. Dreadnort says that it could be virtually anything, as long as money is not an issue, we assume. They plan to offer two standard sizes to better suit potential clients: a 7 x 3.1-meter (23 x 10-foot) version and the larger 9 x 4.5-meter (29.5 x 14.8-foot) model, but anything smaller or in between these two is also doable.

The Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicability
Photo: Dreadnort Boats
Once the client decides what they need the POD for, Dreadnort sets out to design the layout, with direct input from the client. For instance, as a sleeping unit or an emergency shelter, the POD would get V-shaped benches on either end, convertible into two large sleeping areas for as many as 12 people. As a trailer or as a glamping unit, stationary or not, only one such area would be kept, and the other would be replaced with a bathroom and kitchen facilities. For the larger model, Dreadnort imagines a layout with two bedrooms, allowing the entire family to enjoy vacations together.

The POD could also work as a food stall or a mobile coffee shop, in which case different adjustments would be necessary. In one of the renders included in the gallery above, the POD features a small bar area, which would be appropriate if you’d plan on getting a mobile coffee shop that also offered snacks or a smoothie vending venue.

“After all, we do design boats!,” Dreadnort says, adding that the POD could also work as a houseboat, offering a much more eye-catching and perhaps sounder and more durable alternative to buying an old barge and doing the conversion yourself. This goes for all those downsizers who have recently found that life on a houseboat is much cheaper and admittedly more enjoyable than living in a city apartment or a house.

The Dreadnort POD is a mobile structure with practically limitless applicability
Photo: Dreadnort Boats
The plan is to introduce a road-legal version for a campervan “in the future.” To the same media outlet, the company mentions a starting price of NZ$98,000 (approximately US$61,000 at the current exchange rate) for a fully equipped unit in standard spec, but since the size is not specified, we reckon that would be for the smaller version.

In short, the POD is off to a good start, so let’s hope we get to see it enter production.

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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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