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one great joy camping There’s nothing worse than being out in the wilderness far from silent society, and then having someone start up a loud, smelly gas generator at a campsite.
Pebble, a California-based company that’s developing a new travel trailer, hopes an electric RV is just the thing to bring some cool to the glamping life.
D gravel flow It is a travel trailer with a large battery on the floor It can run lights, showers, heating, and air-conditioning and anything else you want to use to get out in the woods. The battery also powers a towing assist feature, so the Flow can give itself an extra push when you tow it down the road, reducing the burden on the vehicle you’re using to tow the camper.
Pebble first announced the Flow in 2023, but it hasn’t revealed the full array of features it plans to put in the camper until today. In an announcement scheduled for CES week, Pebble said it will assemble and deliver its first campers in the first half of 2025. They’re available for pre-order now, starting at $109,000, but will go up to $135,500 if you want to be able to control its features via a companion mobile app.
in flow
The Flow has the same aesthetic as many current-models EVWith large windows and soft, curved features that aim to make it more aerodynamic Depending on how romantic you want to be about it, it looks like a futuristic luxury spaceship or a really big fancy toaster. CEO Bingrui Yang is very romantic about it: He chose the name Pebble for the company because naturally occurring smooth stones bring people joy, and he wants the Electrified Camper to evoke that same sense of serenity.
I had the opportunity to walk around in the tight quarters of a Pebble Flow demo unit at Pebble’s headquarters in Fremont, California. It has everything you want if you are RV’ing out. Inside there is a kitchen with an induction stove, convection oven, sink, microwave and refrigerator. There is ample storage in the cabinets and hidden hatches in the floor for more storage. Most windows open if you need to let in air. In the back rests a queen-sized Murphy bed that retracts into the wall to create space. A dining table can be broken into a second bed at the other end of the trailer. A bathroom and shower sit right in the middle of the floor plan. A glass wall separates it from the rest of the interior, but the person in the bathroom can press a button to electrically frost the glass if they need a personal excrement.
For experienced RV enthusiasts, this probably seems like the ideal rental for a trailer that costs over a hundred grand. Well, you’re right, but what Pebble is hoping is that add-ons like its EV make Flow special.
The Flow is powered by a 45-kWh lithium-ion battery built into the camper’s floor. That’s slightly smaller than the batteries used in compact EVs currently on the market and about half the size of the auto industry’s largest EV batteries. Pebble says the battery can power internal systems for up to seven days on a full charge. A set of 1-kilowatt solar panels built into the roof can back up part of the battery while you’re on the road and initiate regenerative charging while towing. It also has vehicle-to-load technology, so you can connect it to the Flow to use it as a backup power source or EV charger.
The Pebble Flow isn’t actually an e-RV in the sense that it can function as a vehicle by itself. You’ll need another rig to pull it anywhere. While towing with a hybrid or gas engine vehicle will likely get you farther, you can tow it with another EV, Pebble says. The 25-foot trailer weighs 6,200 pounds loaded with all the options, so it takes some muscle to move it. The Pebble website shows the flow pulled by CyberTruck. (When I was at the company’s headquarters, I noticed a matte black Cybertruck in the parking lot. It belonged to Pebble’s CEO, who talked a lot about it while he was there.)
The powered towing assist feature can be toggled when Flow is active. While the motors provide a decent push behind a real car, they’re powerful enough to turn the Flo around a bit using a smartphone app, even though it only moves about 1 mile per hour on its own. It’s enough to spin in a very slow circle, but not close enough to knock you down the block. What this allows you to do is push and pull the trailer with your vehicle to the campsite. Just unhitch the float, grab your iPad, and move it to the perfect spot like a giant, slow RC car. Engaging the tow-assist mode or driving it around the campsite will certainly reduce the trailer’s battery life for actual camping activities, as you can imagine.
Pebble has a feature it calls Magic Hitch (it’s not really magic) that lets you use the app to hook the Flo to a trailer hitch on your towing vehicle. Guide it with the on-screen controls and when Flo is close enough, hold down a button and the hitch will use its attached camera to find the right spot to hook. Another feature called InstaCamp lets you park the trailer on an uneven surface and then press a button to automatically level the camper.
