StressLess Camping

View Original

Roulette Prolite E-volt travel trailer review

Tony Barthel

I recently wrote about the Palomino Revolve EV-2 travel trailer and the fact that it’s pretty ground breaking being all electric. As usual, the readers of RVTravel came through and clued me in to Roulotte ProLite in Quebec, Ontario Canada who actually have two different all-electric travel trailers, one of which has been in production for a while now. 

New for 2021 is ProLite’s E-Volt travel trailer which is quite a bit larger than their first foray into all-electric RVs, the 12V. Looking at the newer model it carries some of the same credentials as the Palomino that I wrote about in that it’s all electric - there is literally no propane aboard. 

The tour

No matter what the energy source the trailer itself is really the thing and this one is small and very light so that means limited interior space. Sort of. 

The front of the trailer sports a two-person dinette which folds down to become sleeping for one. I like that they’ve put windows on the side of the dinette as well as a window in the front of the trailer so there’s lots of ambient light coming in while you’re enjoying your meals. 

Next to the dinette is the electric heater and, beyond that, the bathroom which is a wet bath. Since this trailer is all-electric that means the water heater is as well. If you have trouble with the typical RV six gallon water heater you’re going to be miserable with the 2.5 gallon model in this trailer. 

But it really would be possible to take a full shower with this much hot water as RV water heaters heat the water to 140°F and an RV shower head typically delivers about two gallons per minute. If you pull the Navy shower trick to only have the water running while you’re rinsing or soaking down to lather up you may be fine as you’re not going to run all hot water, there will be a good bit of cold water mixed in. 

My wife may as well have been in the Navy with how well she does RV showering but when I told her about the size of this water heater I was met with comments that I just won’t share with you. Let’s just say they weren’t kind. The bathroom in this trailer is a wet bath with a crazy small vent fan but this is forgivable only because they put a three-speed high-performance fan in the main body of the trailer. Still, I would swap that fan out on the first day I owned the trailer. 

Beyond that is a couch at the back, again with windows on either side and with that high-performance fan overhead. For nighttime you can slide the couch bottom out and it becomes a large 72” X 74” bed. Since this is a convertible bed you might consider an RV SuperBag as the bedding as making and unmaking that bed would make camping less relaxing, to me. 

The kitchen is also all electric, of course, with a single induction cooktop mounted to the counter of the trailer. There’s a bit of counter space between it and the sink and below that are some drawers and a 3.2 cubic foot 120vac bar fridge. 

See this content in the original post

It’s electric

Since the electrical capability of this trailer is where the company hangs it’s hat, let’s look at that. 

There are a total of 400 watts of flexible solar panels on the roof along with a 3,000 watt power inverter. Charging and batteries come from GoPower and the company has chosen to install 250 amp hours of lithium (LiFePO4) batteries. 

Honestly I would like to see double the amount of battery power in this trailer since you’re heating the cabin and the water with purely electric power. 

In summary

I think you’re going to see this from more manufacturers.

I make no bones about the fact that I secretly would love to design RVs and, if I did, I might think about doing something like this but there are things I would absolutely do differently. For example, I would keep a propane heater just because liquid propane has so much energy and you can heat a trailer very efficiently with it. 

Have you ever had one of “those meetings” at work where the boss closes the door and says “we need to talk?” Yeah, I want to do that with ProLite for installing a 120vac fridge when there are plenty of 12volt models available. 

Having a 120vac fridge means you have to run the inverter in the trailer to operate the fridge and inverters, especially a large 3,000 watt inverter that’s included in this trailer, consume a fair amount of energy themselves when you consider that you’re running on a limited supply. 

Frankly what I would do is get one of those 12volt coolers and put it on a sliding drawer-style mechanism. They’re efficient, they’re affordable and you can take it outside or even into the house to pack it up. 

Another thing, the company touts that this is a great trailer for finding a remote place and not needing any services but with just 15 gallons of water aboard you’re not going to be spending more than a day or, at the most, two off the grid. 

I remember driving an early prototype electric Ford Focus. It was a great first effort but trying to use it in the real world left a lot to be desired. I think that would be the case here. All that battery tech would be great off-grid until you run out of water after just a day’s use. So then you go to the campground and why pay for all that battery and solar if you’re going to be hooked to services? Then there’s the 120vac refrigerator adding insult to injury. 

I applaud ProLite for this attempt but I think someone from the company needs to spend real world time using their products off grid before this is quite ready for prime time. 

More RV reviews

We have more RV reviews that you can see including specific categories for your reference.

RV Shopping Tips

If you’re shopping for an RV we have some great resources for you.

Visit an RV show

Want to check out RVs for yourself in person? We have a complete list of RV shows across the US.