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Driving the Thor hybrid EV motorhome - a realistic RV for the future or just a dream?

Tony Barthel

What is the future of RVing? Is an electric RV really just a meaningless promise or is there a chance that we can see one in the near future? 

We actually got to drive a prototype Thor hybrid electric motorhome and have a lot of thoughts about this. 

Moving a big box like a motorhome takes a lot of energy. The bigger the box and the faster you go, the more energy it takes to overcome wind and just the mass of the big box. 

Did you know that the energy stored in a standard 20 pound propane bottle is about the equivalent of 1,000 100 amp hour lithium RV batteries? That’s why the batteries in EVs are so large - it takes a lot of energy to move a vehicle. 

In the mean time companies like Pebble have actually begun producing all-electric travel trailers that use electric motors to overcome the losses inherent in towing a trailer. This makes towing a travel trailer with an electric truck more realistic but these trailers are expensive. 

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If you don’t already know Thor and Winnebago have been showing-off electric-only motorhomes over the past few years and, for the most part, they’re just dream vehicles. Being able to store enough energy in batteries to move a big box for a long time is almost unrealistic at the present time so the challenges of a battery-only RV are real.

Yet the Thor prototype that we got to drive is something that is absolutely realistic. In fact Thor says it will be ready for showrooms by late 2025 and this seems realistic. 

What Thor has done is partner with a company called Harbinger which is already in the business of making electric commercial vehicle chassis for things like delivery vans. 

The chassis under many Class A gas-powered motorhomes were also designed for this same purpose - they were meant for delivery trucks. 

So a partnership between Thor and Harbinger makes sense and Thor is onto something with this idea. And we got to drive it!

The chassis features a four-cylinder range extender/generator.

How it works

There are actually two systems aboard this chassis - a four cylinder gasoline engine and a massive 140 kWh battery pack. 

The battery pack is tied to an electric motor which produces 1,140 ft-lb of torque and 440 horsepower. Wow. Yes, the motorhome was zippy. 

The platform runs on 800 volts so it can take advantage of DC fast charging locations but Thor is making the assumption that you may never visit one of these and we agree. 

According to the KOA, who does an annual survey of campers, many RVers travel fewer than 100 miles from home and often stay in a full hook-up RV park. 

The Harbinger chassis used in the Thor hybrid EV motorhome

Thor says the combined range of the motorhome with a full charge plus the gasoline engine with a full tank of fuel (40 gallons) translates into about 500 miles of range - more than most people are willing to drive in a day. 

If you do want to drive further you can just fill the gas tank or visit a fast charging station or both. Easy. Imagine filling yourself up at a Cracker Barrel while the motorhome sits outside at a fast charging station. 

Harbinger ballparks that fuel savings over a gasoline-only RV will be about 50% compared to a straight gasoline motorhome. That would likely be 12-13 miles per gallon. 

Basically the motorhome runs as an EV until the batteries get low enough at which point the gasoline engine kicks in to recharge the batteries. 

The four cylinder engine runs at about 4,500 RPM producing just 67 horsepower but that’s enough to charge the motorhome from 20 to 90 percent in about an hour. 

Electricity is stored in nickel-cobalt-aluminum-oxide 2170 lithium-ion battery cells—the same size, shape, and chemistry as those in the long-range Tesla Model 3. It’s all packaged into 800-volt, 35-kWh battery packs. In the Thor Class A prototype, four of those packs have been wired in parallel, creating an 1,848-pound battery with a total capacity of 140 kWh. Surprisingly this is only a bit more than you’d find in something like the Rivian R1T but that doesn’t have a gasoline generator aboard.

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Let’s talk about the roof

If you look at the top of this RV you’ll see something missing - the air conditioner. 

Large batteries like the one in this motorhome have cooling and heating technologies to protect the batteries. Thor was able to use some of this to help heat and cool the RV. 

Further, this allows them to employ a smaller and more efficient air conditioner and that air conditioner is not a big lump on the roof. Instead, it’s in the motorhome itself. 

We were told that the roof was kept as free from things protruding from it as possible making the RV more aerodynamic. 

What is up on the roof are five large solar panels. I believe we were told there was over 1400 watts of solar panels up there. 

The smooth roof with just solar panels on the Thor EV as seen on the test track

Driving the Thor-Harbinger motorhome

We got to drive the vehicle on a closed course. There were both straight-line acceleration opportunities and handling opportunities. 

While we were only given a short drive what we could tell is that acceleration on this RV was comparable to many passenger cars. It was quick as you would expect an EV to be. 

What was not expected was how very nimble it was. Apparently Harbinger made a number of changes to the chassis which resulted in both better ride comfort but also tighter cornering. Going through a figure eight slalom course this big motorhome felt like it turned much tighter even than our pickup truck. It was remarkable how tight the turning was on this. 

As for the drive-by-wire function of the steering and braking, the steering felt about like what you would expect in a rig like this with decent enough feedback. 

The brakes were very, very touchy but they can easily be dialed in differently by simply making software adjustments. 

Advantages of this prototype

There are a tremendous number of advantages of a rig like this. 

You can run it on electric only. 

You can refill the gas tank and use the small gasoline engine to extend the range. 

You have an on-board generator in the form of a gasoline engine

There is a lot of solar which means you can do some serious boondocking with this

All EVs incorporate regenerative braking which means they replenish battery power on deceleration such as when coming down a mountain road - this saves brakes and adds battery reserves. 

With this much battery power aboard you can literally use this as a battery back-up for your house so if you’re in a disaster where you need power, you can set things up so this operates your house. 

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Final thoughts

Thor says that this RV should come in close to a normal Class A gasser in price. They also say that they’re expecting to have at least one example on the market in late 2025. 

Another claim is that there is a zero dollar premium over gas or diesel motorhomes. That’s a big claim but I hope they can do it. 

While the prototype we drove was a rough example and was just the first phase of design, the company can use a lot of existing components and design from the Class A gas-powered motorhomes that they already make to turn the project into reality. 

There are some details that the company will undoubtedly dial-in with the chassis as well but the project didn’t seem far from reality and this is only phase one. 

What do you think - would you consider something like this? 

Honestly this makes a tremendous amount of sense for so many reasons I am looking forward to the project moving along. 

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