Lordstown Motors and Camping World will team up to build an electric motorhome, announced at an event at the Lordstown Ohio plant with Lordstown CEO Steve Burns and Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis.
Lordstown also plans to use Camping World for nationwide service locations for the electric Endurance pick-up.
Lordstown aims to be the first to market a fully electric pick-up truck and is currently targeting next fall for the first deliveries. The current target looks like it will fall behind Rivian, which is targeting next summer. However, both companies are startups, so it will be quite a race to see who comes first.
Burns announced that instead of establishing their own national service network, Lordstown will be using Camping World’s locations for service. Camping World has RV service centers across the country, which will instantly give Lordstown the footprint it needs.
But that’s not where the partnership ends. The two companies plan to jointly develop electrified RV equipment to escape the need for gas engines and generators.
Lemonis said they will start electrifying trailers and “fifth wheel” RVs. These would receive batteries to power electrical equipment onboard, avoiding the need for noisy, smelly generators. The goal is that the first of these will hit the road in 2021, as equipment for model year 2022.
The RV industry is about 90% towed equipment and 10% motorized, so electrifying these units will have an immediate effect. It’s also easier to do as they have less power and less development requirements because they don’t require a full electric powertrain.
Camping World plans to work with focus groups to better tailor this new experience to their needs.
Ultimately, the companies will jointly develop a “Class E” motorhome. Currently campers are divided into classes A, B and C, and Lemonis envisions another class, “Class E”, which refers to electric motorhomes.
We don’t have any details yet on what this might look like or when it will come out, but Lemonis seemed pretty excited about it. He said that “we can sell more than [Lordstown] can make ”, suggesting demand won’t be an issue (something we’ve seen with many new electric vehicles recently).
Affordability will be a primary focus for the Class E motorhomes. Lemonis stated that $ 100,000 price tags, common on RVs, just aren’t affordable for many. They want to work to expand the market and secure the future of their industry, especially among millennials and retirees who may struggle with such high price tags. And given the low gas mileage that RVs get, efficiency and cost savings from electric fueling should also help affordability.
Camping World also plans to install chargers in all its locations, which can be used not only by its own electric motorhomes, but also by motorhomes and EVs from other brands. Since the locations are often close to major highways, these provide optimal placement for travelers and can even help them bring in some business from EV owners browsing their stores.
Click through to watch the full Facebook video announcement.
Electrek’s Take
Strangely enough, electric cars and RVs actually have a long history together.
In the early days of electric vehicles, before public chargers existed and spread across the country, EV drivers often used any source of high-current electricity they could find. One of the most common sources was the 50 amp RV hookup, which is available at many campgrounds across the country. An EV driver in need of a charge could drive into any campground with hookups, ask them to park for a few hours, pay them about $ 20, and get a good charge out of it. In addition to pulling up a large camper with a small electric Mini and connecting it to the same type of high-power connection that they used, it was quite a comical sight.
Now we have fast chargers everywhere, but this is a great example of how flexible EVs can be in their energy sources. The power grid goes far and wide – you just need to find the right plugs and sockets to connect to it. Early on, those were RV campgrounds. With the Lordstown “Class E” RV, campsites could come back as a zero-emission engine soon enough.
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