one of the following great joys of Camping There is silence. There's nothing worse than heading off into the woods, away from society, and then hearing someone at the campsite turn on a loud, smelly gas generator.
Pebble, a California-based company that is building a new travel trailer, is hoping that an electric RV is just the thing to bring some calm to a busy life.
pebble flow It's a travel trailer with a big old battery mounted in the floor. It can run lights, showers, heating and air conditioning, and anything else you'd want that uses electricity in the woods. The battery also offers a towing assist feature, so the Flow can give itself extra push when you pull 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 to date it hasn't revealed the full range of features it plans to put into the camper. In an announcement made the week of CES, Pebble said it will assemble and deliver its first campers in the first half of 2025. They're available for preorder now, starting at $109,000, but can go up to $135,500 if you want to be able to. Control its features from a companion mobile app.
in flow
The Flow has a similar aesthetic to many existing-models EVSWith large windows and soft, curved features that are intended 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 naturally occurring smooth stones bring people joy, and he wants the electrified camper to foster the same feeling of peace.
I had a chance to walk around in the tight space of a Pebble Flow demo unit at Pebble's headquarters in Fremont, California. It has everything you could want if you are out RVing. 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 can be opened if you want to let in a breeze. In the back is a queen-sized Murphy bed that's pulled against the wall to create space. A dining table can be broken down into a second bed at the other end of the trailer. There is a bathroom and shower right in the middle of the floorplan. A glass wall separates it from the rest of the interior, but a person in the bathroom can press a button to electronically cool the glass if they need to have a private bowel movement.
To the experienced RV enthusiast, this probably seems like standard fare for a trailer that costs well over a hundred. Well, you're right, but what Pebble is hoping is that add-ons like its EV make the Flow special.
The Flow is powered by a 45-kilowatt lithium-ion battery built into the camper's floor. That's slightly smaller than the batteries built into 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 the internal systems for up to seven days once fully charged. A set of 1-kilowatt solar panels built into the roof can top up the battery portion when you're on the road, and regenerative charging kicks in 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 is not actually an e-RV in the sense that it can function as a vehicle in its own right. You'll need another rig to tow it anywhere. Pebble says that towing a vehicle with a hybrid or gas engine will probably require you to tow a greater distance, but you can tow it with another EV. The 25-foot trailer loaded with all the options weighs 6,200 pounds, so it's going to take some muscle to move it. The Pebble website shows the Flow being pulled by a Cybertruck. (While I was at the company's headquarters, I saw a matte black Cybertruck in the parking lot. It belonged to Pebble's CTO, who talked a lot about it while I was there.)
The powered towing assist feature can be activated when the Flow is in motion. While the motors provide a good push behind an actual vehicle, they're powerful enough to move the Flow around a bit using a smartphone app, though it only moves at 1 mph on its own. This is enough to make it spin in a very slow circle, but not enough to take you down the block. This allows you to tow the trailer to your spot at the campsite without pushing it with your car and dragging it around. Simply open Flow, grab your iPad, and move it to the right spot like a giant, slow RC car. Engaging the 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 actually magic) that lets you use the app to hook the Flow up to a trailer hitch on your towing vehicle. Simply guide it with the controls on the screen, and when the flow is close enough, hold down a button and the hitch will use its attached camera to find the exact spot to place the hook. Another feature, called InstaCamp, lets you park the trailer on an uneven surface and then press a button to automatically level the camper.