The World’s Second Self-Towing Camper Has Actually Gone Into Production

For years, a pair of companies and even a couple of big RV industry names have been promising to launch revolutionary new camper-trailers equipped with their own drive motors. These motors are meant to reduce the load on the tow vehicles hauling them down the road. Well, the trailers have finally reached production. We already know that earlier this year, Pebble successfully put the Flow self-propelled camper into production; now, the other company with an innovative design, Lightship, has put its Lightship AE.1 into production. This camper, like the Pebble, teases a future where EVs can haul campers across America without range anxiety.

The two companies now selling self-trailering technology are Lightship and Pebble, and both explore the “what if?” this concept presents. What if you could tow a big camper and keep most of your range or fuel economy? What if your camper had a large battery that powered everything inside it? What if campers didn’t look so boring anymore?

Even if you disagree with the premise of these two campers, you sort of have to be impressed that both of these companies actually reached production. Automotive and RV graveyards are littered with ambitious upstarts that sold big ideas and then fizzled out without creating anything tangible. Startup companies flop so often and so hard that disbelieving these companies is often the default for so many people. I mean, how many people are currently driving an Elio? So, at least to me, it’s always commendable when a team pulls it off, and creating what’s more or less a self-pulling camper is no easy feat.

America Now Has Two Motorized Travel Trailers

Whether the folks of Lightship and Pebble knew it or not, they were more or less racing to see who could reach production first. Pebble won the race by putting its self-propelled camper into production back in the spring. If you want to read about the Pebble Flow, I’ve written about it pretty extensively.

The one camper I’ve written about even more is the Lightship AE.1, the production version of the Lightship L1 prototype, and I wrote a huge over 6,000-word piece about it back in January. That story has everything you might possibly need to know about the Lightship, but I will include the most important details in this story.

Let me set the stage. The weather has warmed up, seasonal campgrounds have reopened, and you just de-winterized your camper. If your truck is an EV, you probably limited yourself to campgrounds that aren’t too far from home. If it’s a gas truck, you’re blowing tons of money on fuel, as you’re lucky to do better than 10 mpg.

Once you’ve emptied your bank account just driving, it’s time to set your stabilizers down and kick back, right? Well, if you’re camping in a place without shore power and you have other campers near you, be prepared to hear generators cutting through your serene relaxation. Even I unintentionally became one of those generator jerks this summer.

So, now you’re pissed off from having spent all of this money just to listen to a single-cylinder engine gnawing away at a tank of gas, and that’s before you learn what’s fallen off of your camper on this trip.

This isn’t me just making things up for dramatic effect, either. My family is full of lifelong travel trailer owners, and it’s shocking how much hasn’t changed over the decades. Nobody really enjoys leveling and stabilizing their trailer. Few people enjoy sliding their trailer into a narrow parking spot. Many people, myself included, would prefer to just drop the trailer’s tongue and get right to enjoying camping.

When I saw the Lightship AE.1 in person, I was blown away by how well it was put together. I wondered how on Earth car engineers did it, and the answer was because it wasn’t just car engineers, but experts in their trades. Lightship Energy has engineers and designers from automakers and RV companies. Lightship also has plumbing experts, electrical engineers, battery engineers, structural engineers, and everyone else whose expertise is necessary to bring a project like this together.

The Lightship design consists of two main portions, the canopy and the tub. Both the canopy and the tub are made out of hand-laid composites. Lightship co-founder Ben Parker told me that it’s built a lot like a glider aircraft with a foam core with two composite skins. These composites are backed by an all-aluminum space frame. Composites were chosen not just for their low weight, but because they have been proven to last a long time on RVs. After my inspection of one of Lightship’s prototypes, I would wager a bet on a Lightship lasting longer than most rigs out of Indiana. Well, I suppose it’s no wonder that Thor Industries keeps its distance from me.

Low And Smooth

The engineers at Lightship were absolutely obsessed with a trailer that’s both big enough for the whole family while also not being a total drag. As we’ve established in one of my recent reports, aerodynamic drag is the number one killer of highway fuel economy in a gas truck and electric range in an EV. Even completely empty lightweight flatbed trailers have enough drag to bring your fuel economy down.

Traditional travel trailers are pretty much the worst offenders because they’re shaped in such a way that your truck is effectively trying to yank a small ranch house through the wind. The engineers at Lightship realized that the secret to saving range is cleaning up the aero of their trailer. Because of that, not only is the AE.1 rounded and slippery, but it compacts to almost half of its height when it’s in Road Mode. Specific dimensions from my previous piece:

[M]easuring 27-feet long, 6 feet, 11 inches tall when in road mode, and 10 feet tall when in camp mode. The trailer is said to have a ground clearance of a foot and a departure angle of just 9 degrees, so don’t take it off-road. Fully loaded, it weighs in at 8,300 pounds (dry weight is 7,450 pounds) and it sleeps 4 to 6 people depending on the configuration.

The aero means that the trailer’s motor doesn’t need to be that powerful to help the camper tow itself. The Lightship folks say that this trailer is about three times more aerodynamic than a typical travel trailer of this size, and I believe them.

The drive system is a system that Lightship calls TrekDrive. This system feeds from a 44 kWh battery pack or a 77 kWh battery pack, both of Lithium Iron Phosphate chemistry. Here are more details about that system from my previous piece:

The motor powers just the rear axle and produces 20 kW (27 HP) continuous 75 kW (100 HP) peak. The peak is for accelerating and climbing but it was determined that 20 kW was perfect for just cruising behind the tow vehicle. Parker explained that Lightship prefers making the trailer underpowered for safety. There is a suite of sensors that measure the movements of the truck. This combines with the software that works a lot like the traction control and stability control of your car to keep the trailer perfectly tensioned and in control behind your truck. But, at the same time, Parker considers the underpowered motor to be a safety feature as it the 8,000-pound trailer will never have enough power to cause havoc.

Parker explained that the team even took a test AE.1 out on the road with the motor permanently cranked up to its 100 HP peak and the worst the trailer could do was make the driver feel like something pat the truck on the butt. Otherwise, it remained stable. How is all of this legal? The Lightship team told me that while there are some legal challenges in a design like this, it’s legally considered to be the same as any other travel trailer.

Lightship says that thanks to the 77kWh version of TrekDrive, if you pull the trailer with a 300-mile EV, that EV should keep most of its range. Likewise, if you tow the Lightship with a 20 mpg truck, then that truck should continue to get close to 20 mpg until you hit the 300-mile mark. If you exhaust the trailer’s battery, the trailer reverts to a free-wheel state. At that point, it just becomes a regular 8,200-pound gross weight trailer, but with slick aero.

The Lightship AE.1 has a camera system that can assist with parking or function as a security system. The AE.1 can also level and stabilize itself with the touch of a button. The waste tank hose is pre-installed, and it, as well as the tanks, is self-cleaning. The door is wide enough to be wheelchair accessible, and the body rides low enough that you don’t have to climb a million steps to enter.

What I loved about the AE.1’s interior was Lightship’s approach to materials. The company has RV engineers in it, and these people know how nasty some RV interiors feel. Lightship went in a different direction, leaning heavily on metal, recycled plastic, and recycled fabric. But what I enjoyed most about the interior of the prototype is that high-traffic surfaces felt pleasing to the touch. The fabrics felt thick, the counters felt sturdy, and the walls didn’t feel like they would break apart if a person fell into them. I even like how Lightship baked in service panels so that both the end user and Lightship’s service people can enact easy repairs.

I was most impressed with the shower. So many typical campers have cheap showers that sit high off the floor and seemingly wrap you into a tiny, cheap plastic box while you’re trying to get clean. Lightship’s shower is flush with the floor, and you get all of the headroom afforded by the ceiling. The Lightship has up to 7.5 feet of headroom, and that’s because, as Parker told me, he wanted basketball players to be able to buy one of these and be able to relax in it without slumping their heads.

Other smaller, but neat features baked into the Lightship include a water pump with an accumulator, dark-tinted windows, window shades, and hidden HVAC vents. I’m a huge fan of that water system. If you’ve ever used the 12V electric water pump in a typical camper, then you know that these pumps suck. They don’t deliver solid water pressure, and instead sort of pulse. That doesn’t happen in the Lightship. Instead, it delivers water like the taps of a house that’s connected to city water; it’s strong and consistent.

In Production Now

The version of the Lightship AE.1 that’s in production right now is the top-spec Cosmos Edition, of which only 50 will be made. These feature 1.8 kW of solar panels, two unique colors, a dual-burner induction stovetop, a combo microwave and convection oven, a refrigerator, and a single-drawer dishwasher. In terms of tanks, the AE.1 sports a 50-gallon fresh tank, 35 gray tank, and a 30-gallon black tank.

The trailer charges from a NACS port and sucks up 155 kW of juice, enabling the trailer to charge from dead to full in just one hour. The trailer can also output up to 3 kW of solar to an external source and can output 10 kW through its outlet to act like a giant generator. In other words, when this trailer is sitting next to your house for 90 percent of the year, it can act like a giant Tesla Powerwall and solar array.

This trailer, which features basically every option checked, will run you $250,000. The next option down is the $184,000 Lightship AE.1 Atmos, which is the flagship 77 kWh TrekDrive camper but without the exclusive colors. It has very few option boxes to check. You can get a $2,500 motorized awning, $800 bags to go into the storage lockers in the camper, $400 for bedding, and a $7,500 twin bed that drops down from the ceiling. That’s it for options.

A step down from there is the $151,000 Lightship AE.1 Panos, which comes with a 44 kWh battery, TrekDrive, a slower 100 kW charging speed, and 840 watts of solar. Options include all of the options noted for the Atmos, plus the option for the system that automatically stabilizes and levels the camper, plus the camera system, which is wrapped into a single package that costs $5,000. The Panos, with its smaller battery, will go only 140 miles on a charge.

Finally, there’s the $125,000 Lightship AE.1 Terros, and this one is basically the Panos, but without the TrekDrive system. The Cosmos Edition is in production now, and deliveries begin at the end of the summer. Deliveries for the Atmos begin in spring 2026, and then deliveries begin for the Panos in late 2026.

All of these prices make the Lightship AE.1 more expensive than its Pebble Flow competitor. However, it’s notable that the Lightship comes standard with features that are optional on the Pebble Flow.

Of course, the elephant in the room is America’s charging situation. Both Pebble and Lightship recognize that pull-through gas station-style charging stations are rare. Unfortunately, what this means is that when it comes time for charging, you’ll need to charge both your truck and your camper separately. Given the fact that most charging stations are parking space stalls, it will be impractical for buyers to charge their Lightships at countless stations. Then there’s the fact that public chargers often come with rates so high that operating an electric truck off public chargers costs as much as running a diesel truck. Sadly, the Lightship won’t solve that problem.

That said, I’m still excited to see this trailer finally come to market. Charging issues aside, the Lightship is packed with good ideas. I especially enjoyed the build quality. I’m not afraid to point out when an RV company sucks at quality, so if I say a camper is built well, you know I’m not fluffing it up. So, congratulations to Lightship for hitting this milestone. I cannot wait to see one in a campground.