Meet The Tesla of Caravans

For those travellers who have long cherished the freedom of hitting the open road with a caravan or at least making your way to the nearest caravan park with full amenities, brace yourselves. The caravan game is getting an electric facelift, mimicking the EV craze that’s been reshaping the automotive world. Enter the Lightship L1 Electric Caravan, the new poster child for luxury camping.

The Lightship L1, flaunting its status as the first purpose-built all-electric RV, is the brainchild of two chaps who used to hang their hats at Tesla. Ben Parker and Toby Kraus, the co-founders, apparently looked at the RV industry, and decided to spice things up a bit.

First off, the L1 looks like it’s been beamed down by some retired holidaying alien lifeform with an appreciation for streamlined architecture. Underneath those sleek lines, the L1 is laden with a battery-powered trailer and a self-propelled drive motor which will help to keep your electric vehicle from panting under the strain, despite weighing as much as a hefty 3,400kg when fully loaded.
This sleek travel trailer, promising an aerodynamic design that’s thrice as efficient as your run-of-the-mill caravan, claims to keep the efficiency of the towing vehicle almost untouched. That means if you’ve got a 300-mile range electric vehicle (or about 482 kilometres for those of us using a sensible measurement system), it stays that way even with the L1 hitched on the back.
The price for this piece of futuristic camping luxury? A mere NZ$196,000, or about NZ$185,000 after you claw back some tax credit. Reservations are open for a deposit of NZ$780 at www.lightshiprv.com, with production set to kick off in late 2024.