ICECO VL45 vs VL60: Which Size, by Trip Length, Battery and the Space Behind the Seats

Short answer: buy the VL45 ProS for one or two people on trips of up to a week, and the VL60 ProS when there are more than two of you, the trips run past a week, or you keep a freezer’s worth of meat in it. The 60 holds a third more. On ICECO’s own sheets it also uses about 58 percent more energy a day, which is the number most people miss: the bigger box is not a bigger box for free. It is about ten pounds heavier and two and a half inches wider, and the width is what decides whether it fits behind the seats.

The two are otherwise the same fridge. Same SECOP compressor, same 0 to 50 F range, same lid that opens from either side, same 5-year compressor warranty, same three battery-protection settings at the same voltages. So the decision is three questions: how many fridge-days you need between shops, how many amp-hours the battery can give it, and how wide the hole is. I take them in that order.

What is actually different between the VL45 ProS and the VL60 ProS?

Here they are side by side, from ICECO’s pages and the two dealers that print what ICECO leaves out, with the holes left where nobody prints a number.

Read the weight line with some care. ICECO does not publish a weight for either ProS; OK4WD lists the 60 at 59 lb and Nomadic Supply at 65, and the 45 comes in at 50.5 on Trail4Runner’s spec table and 52.1 on Nomadic’s table. Call the gap about ten pounds. Empty, either one is a one-person lift; full, the 60 is a two-person lift or a slide.

How many more amp-hours does the VL60 use?

Nobody has published a same-room, same-meter test of these two, and I have not run one. What exists is ICECO’s sheet figure for each, both labelled laboratory data with no temperature attached, plus one station reading each: a Wrangler owner’s for the 45 and Camp Addict’s for the dual-zone 60. Because the two sheet figures come from the same maker with the same wording, the ratio between them is the most comparable pair of numbers that exists, even though neither absolute figure can be trusted to the amp-hour.

So the honest planning number is about 25 to 40 amp-hours a day for the 45 and about 40 to 60 for the 60, more in heat. On one 100Ah lithium battery, taken as 100 usable, the sheet figures give 3.5 days for the 45 and 2.2 for the 60 before the battery is flat, with nothing else on it. That is the whole cost of the extra 15 litres: a day of autonomy. If you drive most days, a DC-DC charger puts either fridge’s day back while you drive and the difference stops mattering; if you sit in one camp for four days on a battery and no panel, the 45 gets you there and the 60 does not. This is my reading of published figures, not a test; the sums behind the band are in our amp-draw post and the station table in the runtime hub.

One more thing the sheet does not say. Running watts are not the problem; owners on ICECO’s page meter the 60 at 42 and about 60 watts with the compressor on, and the Wrangler owner’s 45 pulled 51 in MAX and 30 in ECO. The difference between the sizes is how much of the day the compressor runs, which is the bigger box losing more cold through more wall. Set ECO once the fridge is at temperature on either one.

Will it fit?

The 60 is 2.1 inches longer and 2.4 inches wider than the 45, and the same height within a tenth of an inch. That is about a quarter more floor. The width is the number to check: a 45 at under 16 inches sits beside a drawer system or a recovery kit in a midsize SUV; an 18.3 inch box often does not, and the dual-zone VL60 at 19.5 inches wide is wider again. One Jeep owner on Overland Bound opened a thread with “I thought I wanted the VL60 but it may be too big”, and Camp Addict, which ran the dual-zone VL60 on a Jackery Explorer 1500, called a 31-inch-plus box “large for many vans” and said their six-foot tester “struggled to lift it alone” because of the width. Measure the space with the lid swing: both ProS lids open from either side, which is the reason you can put either fridge against a wall, but you still need the lid’s height above it.

If the fridge rides on a slide, check the slide’s listed models before buying the fridge; the two sizes do not share a tray.

What does each size actually hold, by the people who own one?

VL45 ProS

The owners on ICECO’s page agree on the size class: “perfect to keep all our food for two people/ 1 week”, with a small Bluetti running it when the truck was off “and we were able to make it all week”; “meal prep and have drinks for an entire week”; a two-week trip where the power station “had no trouble keeping up”; three weeks through Colorado and New Mexico in August. One owner with a car that gets hot says it “usually lasts us about 18 hours if it’s 70 degree” and drains the battery “in just a few hours” when the car heats up, which says more about the battery and the parked car than the fridge. Another: “The size also works well for one person to move when you need to.” Trail4Runner’s reviewer scored it 9.6 and liked that it sits stable without a slide and is quiet.

VL60 ProS

The 60’s owners describe groups and long trips: “a 4 day trip for 6 people and had plenty of room”; a two-week trip where the VL60 “was the right size for this kind of trip”; one owner who compared it to the 90 litre model and decided “two of these is just the right size”. The weight comes up every time: “about 60 lbs so taking the food out separate makes it much lighter to transport”. It cools fast (“Gets to temp in only 20 min” from one owner) and the running draw owners quote is 42 to about 60 watts.

What about the dual-zone VL60?

There are two fridges called VL60. The ProS above is a single zone. The VL60 dual zone is a separate body: 31.2 x 19.5 x 18.9 inches, about 67 lb on Nomadic Supply’s table (Camp Addict weighed theirs at 62), 89 cans, 0.545 kWh a day on the sheet, and two compartments you can run as a fridge and a freezer, two fridges, two freezers, or one zone switched off. Camp Addict’s 2022 test metered it at 40 to 45 watts running on 12 volts, pulled the big side to 39 F in about half an hour and the small side to 0 F in about an hour, and ran it almost 48 hours on a Jackery Explorer 1500 with one side frozen. Their main complaint was the display: thermometers inside “read 5 to 6 degrees warmer than the display at times”. It is the one to buy if you want ice cream hard and milk cold in the same box; it is also the widest and heaviest of the three, and the one a Jeep owner on WAYALIFE wanted but could only get in 60 litres, because ICECO makes no dual zone at 45.

Which size, by how you camp?

What to skip

Skip buying the 60 “to be safe” for two people: you pay for the litres twice, once at the till and again in amp-hours every day, and the extra room fills with warm air you then cool. Skip the plain VL45 and VL60 if the ProS is on the shelf; the either-side lid and the second DC socket are the parts you use every trip. Skip the dual zone unless you will run two temperatures; a single zone switched to 0 F is a freezer, and one zone of the dual switched off is just a heavier single. And skip the sheet-versus-sheet argument on forums for anything but the ratio: ICECO does not print the conditions, so 0.347 and 0.548 are only good for comparing with each other.

FAQ

Is the ICECO VL60 worth it over the VL45?

Only if you will fill it. For two people on trips of up to a week, owners say the 45 holds enough, and the 60 costs about 58 percent more energy a day on ICECO’s own figures plus ten pounds and two and a half inches of width. For three or more people, trips past a week, or a freezer’s worth of meat, the 60 is the right box, with a battery that can feed it.

How many amp-hours a day does the VL60 use?

ICECO’s sheet comes to about 46 amp-hours a day at 12 volts, on conditions it does not print; the VL45’s sheet comes to about 29. Plan 40 to 60 for the 60 and 25 to 40 for the 45, more in heat. One review’s dual-zone VL60 on a power station came to about 51 amp-hours a day with one side frozen, including the station’s own draw.

Will the VL60 run on a 100Ah battery?

Yes, for a little over two days on the sheet figure with nothing else on the battery, against about three and a half for the 45. With a DC-DC charger and most days spent driving, either size refills on the road; our dual battery vs power station post covers that choice and the overnight post covers the starter-battery case.

Is the VL60 ProS a dual zone?

No. The VL60 ProS is a single zone, like the VL45 ProS. The dual-zone fridge is the plain VL60, a different and heavier body with two compartments; ICECO’s dual-zone Pros start at 75 litres.

Which battery protection setting should I use?

Both sizes use the same table: High 11.1 volts, Medium 10.1, Low 9.6. On a starter battery, High. On a LiFePO4 house battery or a power station, Medium or Low; lithium rests above both until nearly empty, by the table in our cutoff post. The by-brand table is in our cutoff post, and the feed wire that stops a healthy battery reading flat is in the wire gauge post.

Are these numbers from a test?

No. Nothing on this page was measured by me. The sheet figures are ICECO’s, the station readings are one Wrangler owner’s and Camp Addict’s, the trip reports are owners’ words on ICECO’s pages and three forums, and the per-day lines are those figures divided by 12 volts.