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One of the great joy of camping is silence. There is nothing worse than going out into the wilderness, far from society, and then hearing someone in a campsite start a loud, smelly gas generator.
Pebble, a California-based company that’s building a new travel trailer, hopes an electric RV is just the thing to make the glamping life quieter.
the Rock Flow a travel trailer with a large battery on its floor. It can power lights, showers, heating, and air-conditioning, and anything else you want to use power for out in the woods. The battery also powers a towing assist feature, so the Flow can give itself an extra push if you tow it down the road, easing the burden on the vehicle you’re using to haul the camper.
Pebble first announced the Flow in 2023, but it hasn’t revealed the full range of features it plans to pack into the camper until now. In an announcement scheduled for CES week, Pebble said it will assemble and deliver the first campers in the first half of 2025. They are available for preorder now, starting at $109,000, but going up to $ 135,500 if you wish to do so. control its features with the accompanying mobile app.
In Flow
The Flow has the same aesthetic as many current models EVswith large windows and soft, curved parts that aim to make it more aerodynamic. It looks like a futuristic luxury spaceship, or a really big fancy toaster, depending on how romantic you want to be about it. CEO Bingrui Yang is very romantic about it: He chose the name Pebble for the company because natural smooth stones tend to bring joy to people, and he wants the electrified camper to develop the same. feeling of peace.
I had the opportunity to tour the cramped space of a Pebble Flow demo unit at Pebble’s headquarters in Fremont, California. It holds everything you want when you’re in an RV. Inside there is a kitchen with induction stove, convection oven, sink, microwave, and refrigerator. The cabinets have ample storage, and there are hidden drawers in the floor for extra storage. Most windows open when you need to let the air in. In the back sits a queen-sized Murphy bed that leans back against the wall to create space. A dinette can be broken into a second bed at the other end of the trailer. A bathroom and shower sit 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 electronically freeze the glass if they need a private poo.
To the experienced RV enthusiast, this may all sound like standard fare for a trailer costing over a hundred grand. Well, you’re right, but Pebble’s hope is that EV-like add-ons make the Flow special.
The Flow is powered by a 45-kWh lithium-ion battery built into the camper’s floor. That’s 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 interior systems for up to seven days on a full charge. A set of 1-kW solar panels built into the roof can juice part of the battery on the way back while you’re on the road, and regenerative charging kicks in during towing. It has vehicle-to-load tech too, so you can connect to the Flow to use it as a backup power source or EV charger.
The Pebble Flow isn’t really an E-RV in the sense that it could be a car in itself. You’ll need another rig to tow it anywhere. Pebble says that while towing with a hybrid or gas engine car will probably get you far, you can tow it with another EV. The 25-foot trailer weighs 6,200 pounds loaded with all the options, so it will take some muscle to move it. Pebble’s website shows the Flow being towed by a Cybertruck. (While I was at the company’s headquarters, I noticed a matte black Cybertruck in the parking lot. It belonged to Pebble’s CTO, who kept talking about it while I was there.)
The powered towing assist feature can be toggled when the Flow is operating. While the motors provide a decent push behind a real car, they have enough power to roll the Flow around using a smartphone app, even though it’s only going about 1 mile per hour on its own. self That’s enough to spin it in a very slow circle, but not anywhere near enough to get you down the block. What this allows you to do is maneuver the trailer around the campsite without having to push and tow it with your car. Just unhitch the Flow, grab your iPad, and drive it like a giant, slow-moving RC car to the perfect spot. Engaging in tow-assist mode or driving it around the campsite will definitely 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 allows you to use the app to hook the Flow up to the trailer hitch of your towing vehicle. Just guide it with the on-screen controls, and when the Flow is close, hold a button and the hitch will use the included camera to find the exact hitch spot. Another feature, called InstaCamp, allows you to park the trailer on an uneven surface and then press a button to level the campsite automatically.
