American recreational vehicle company THOR Industries has unveiled renderings of a concept for a new charging station specifically designed for electric recreational vehicles.
The charging station concept includes everything you might hope to find at a regular rest area, including restrooms, a playground, fitness equipment, and green spaces.
The difference is mainly in the layout. It is designed with road access points, wide aisles to maneuver eRVs between pull-through charger islands, and dual charging cords for people driving an EV hooked up to a travel trailer with an electric drivetrain — and, of course, it provides clean, renewable energy instead of gasoline.
"Electrified transportation will play a central role in the future of RVing as eRVs become available for purchase, and more people opt to pull a traditional or electrified travel trailer with an electric tow vehicle," THOR Industries president and CEO Bob Martin said.
As Martin alluded to, fully electric RVs are, like the charging station, still mostly in the concept phase. One Detroit-based startup recently released an electric camper van with 250 miles of range and a fairly hefty $200,000 price tag. And THOR itself unveiled a concept for an electric Airstream back in January 2022 — that concept, called eStream, is apparently still in development.
However, based on THOR's eRV charging station concept, it would seem that the focus on electric RVs has not been forgotten.
"A charging station ecosystem that can accommodate eRVs and the use of EV as tow vehicles are essential to this transformation, which is why THOR is actively exploring options to support the effort," Martin said. "We designed this concept to provide states and rural communities a better understanding of the infrastructure needed near parks, destination towns and other popular destinations to retain the tremendous economic benefits future RV travelers will offer."
Other planet-friendly features of the charging stations would include solar panels on the charger shelter roofs and a rain harvesting system, similar to one of the world's nicest EV charging stations in Scotland.
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