After editing my package.json and gulp files properly to work with laravel-elixir-vue-2, I had to remove entirely the node modules directory and run npm install in order to get the correct version of the vue-loader (see below). The vue loader was still at version 8.x

NOTE: the master branch now hosts 9.x which only works with Vue 2.0. For version 8.x which works with Vue 1.x, see the 8.x branch.

not a big deal, maybe just on my machine, anyway.