Love it or hate it, it’s hard to look at the Lightship L1 electric caravan and not feel something. This glass box transforms from a streamlined trailer while towing into a tall six-person motorhome while stationary. It costs over $100,000 and is nothing like the rest of the RV industry, dominated by walls of boring white plastic. It’s the first step in Lightship’s mission to help bring electrification to diesel-loving RVs.
The Lightship L1 is a battery powered trailer that can be configured with its own drive motor to reduce towing demand to “near zero” for the vehicle pulling it. While that’s an efficiency benefit for any truck or SUV, it’s especially noticeable for EV drivers riddled with range anxiety and a desire to get far off the grid.
If this all sounds familiar, it’s probably because Airstream showed off a self-propelled eStream in early 2022. But so far, that’s just a concept: the Lightship L1 will go into production next year.
The L1’s roof rises 10 feet high in camp mode, compared to 6 feet 9 inches when driving. The travel trailer measures 27 feet long and eight feet six inches wide and has a fully loaded gross vehicle weight of 7,500 pounds. The electric lift also has a manual override that allows you to raise and lower the trailer in case you run out of power.
The roof and awnings can also be covered with up to 3kW of solar panels to help charge up to 80kWh of onboard battery capacity. Lightship says its “no compromise battery system” can keep indoor all-electric appliances (like a multi-burner induction cooktop) and features plugged in for a week or more without having to plug them in and without resorting to propane or to diesel. fuels or a noisy gas generator. She can also use the L1 to charge her EV while off the grid or power her home as a solar generator when parked in her driveway.
Lightship fits the L1 with two batteries: a high-voltage battery pack that powers the propulsion and onboard devices, as well as a small, low-voltage battery for light loads. The solar panels charge the high voltage battery pack, which in turn keeps the smaller battery charged. But the company doesn’t want owners to worry about battery specs or charge levels.
“One of our overall design goals is ease of use and the way it displays on the power system is a seamless power experience for our users that doesn’t require them to separately manage their low and high voltage batteries,” said the co-director of Lightship. Founders Ben Parker (CEO) and Toby Kraus (President) in an email interview with the edge. “All devices, appliances and plugs are always on and ‘just work’, and our infotainment system gives users an intuitive and easy-to-use view of the power system to make trip planning easier and therefore not They don’t need to care or have in-depth knowledge on how to do it. the power system is working.”
While the L1’s sunroof, public EV chargers, household outlets and RV campground electrical hookups are the main ways owners can charge the trailer, Lightship co-founders say the edge that the company is exploring additional options. These can be through an upgraded alternator in your internal combustion engine (ICE) tow vehicle or by using the L1’s electric drive motor as a generator on the go.
Pulling a giant glass house at high speeds raises some safety concerns. The company says rock and mud guards will be fitted to the front of the production L1, and its windows are manufactured using the same safety techniques as cars. “We follow an exciting ongoing trend in automotive development toward more windows integrated into the top of vehicles and in cabin spaces, and in doing so, we hold ourselves to rigorous automotive safety standards,” the co-founders said.
Based in San Francisco and Boulder, Colorado, Lightship likes to tout its team’s Rivian, Lucid and Tesla credentials. It’s a pedigree that helped the company close a $23 million Series A funding round last summer, adding to the $4 million raised since its founding in May 2021. Tony Fadell’s Build Collective is just one of a host of investors.
“L1 is the necessary RV revolution for those who love to explore our planet while making sustainable choices,” said Fadell, inventor of the iPod and founder of Nest. “It’s not an old RV that’s been ‘electrified.’ L1 has been completely redesigned for camping and towing, for both EVs and standard ICE SUVs and trucks. Lightship is forever changing the industry for the better.”
We’ll see about that, Tony; This isn’t supposed to go into production until “late 2024”, and the company isn’t ready to say when the first deliveries will take place.
Prices for the Lightship L1 begin to $125,000, or $118,400 after an available tax credit, the company says. That honestly sounds reasonable for a premium camper, though it depends on what you actually get for that price, and those details won’t be provided until later.
We know the L1 will launch with two models: the base L1 Essential and an upgraded L1 Long Range model that includes the drive motor and more battery capacity for a starting price of $151,500 (or $139,600 after tax credit). Co-founders Parker and Kraus were unwilling to answer questions posed by the edge related to battery chemistry, included appliances, option packages, or other details. That information will be provided later, they said.
Can book now for $500 (fully refundable) if already sold. Or if you need more convincing, maybe wait for the reactions to the L1 prototype that will be on display at SXSW in Austin, Texas for a few days starting in Saturday, March 11.
