Thor Industries presents electric camper concept

Thor Industries, a US manufacturer of motorhomes, has presented two electric concepts: an electrically powered motorhome and an e-assisted caravan. For later series models, Thor does not want to rely on electrified chassis from other manufacturers, but to become active itself.

The Airstream eStream Concept caravan is based on a high-voltage electric chassis from Thor and was developed together with ZF and Hymer. It has its own electric drive and batteries. This means that the caravan should not only be able to drive itself when manoeuvring, but also support the electric drive of the towing vehicle when travelling to the campsite, thus increasing the range of the vehicle and trailer combination.

Thor does not currently provide technical data on the Airstream eStream Concept. Nevertheless, a rough estimate is possible, because the platform developed by ZF and Thor subsidiary Hymer is known: In the summer of 2021, a prototype caravan crossed the Alps with an Audi e-tron as the towing vehicle without recharging. Two 90 kW electric motors were installed in the E-Home Coco, and the caravan also had two 40 kWh batteries each, which are also capable of fast charging.

The Thor Vision Vehicle (TVV) motorhome concept is based on an electric chassis developed jointly with Roush and is equipped with both a battery pack and a fuel cell, which should allow up to 300 miles (around 480 kilometres) of range. Again, no concrete performance figures or plans for a production model are yet known.

“Early on, we determined that success for us would not be to simply put our name on the side of an electric chassis built by a third-party electric chassis manufacturer,” says Thor CEO Bob Martin. “Instead, as the industry leader, we harnessed emerging technology and co-developed flexible, scalable and customizable platforms on which our family of companies will build distinct products, providng a best-in-class RV user experience.”

prnewswire.com, thor-industries.com (eStream), thor-industries.com (TVV)