Zodd

I know people have talked about this a lot on this forum, but this reporting is really eye opening. Untold stories behind Indiana's RV boom: A punishing pace, safety issues and broken bodies: A look at the grueling conditions RV workers endured as companies saw record sales and profits during the RV boom of the pandemic. It is really stunning some of the stories from this investigation. Since this 3 own a huge chunk of all the brands out there this is concerning. It is a long read but covers issues from labor environment to quality of end products. I know it is often said "everything has issues" but this stuff is crazy! Thor with almost 400k recalls in 2021! Really sad to see these companies report record profits the last few years while doing this!

@John E Davies Thise are cool pics. I love the outline look on the black and agree I wish they had the mirrors still. You were not paying $92 a night right. That was for all 3 days? We like Heyburn state park. It is close to us. The inner loop sites can be a bit tight but pretty areas with great hiking and bike trails.

I was wondering how my HAM operators would chime in here. I am also one (again not really active but would like to get active again. W3EZY). That was my first thought tough. Fire up the HAM radio and tune into NOAA. I had never heard of POTA so thanks for that call out. Going to read up on it.

I just happened to find this video today and thought it could be helpful in regards to this thread. It does a great job of breakdown tires and tire pressure. Not saying it is perfect but helps level set on what all this is about.

Just something to keep in mind with towing at altitude with a smaller truck. Engines lose power at altitude. Something that is often forgotten. Just keep that in mind. Here is some info on it. I just bring it up since you said you where headed to the Smokey Mountains (granted not the elevation of the Rockies). F-150 and Chevy 1500 overheat from PickupTrucks.com. Other brands say they essentially take elevation into account and have enough Just something to keep in mind depending on where you are headed and how heavy you are loaded.

This article pretty much sums up what everyone here has to say about Oliver. Very hard to find a company that stays on the good side of bad press releases. Nice work OTT! This says volumes about who you all are. RV makers differ in informing owners of dangerous RVs defects

@AZ Wonderer I am curious about the switch from Lance 2075. That has been a trailer I have had my eye on. Nice layout, quality trailer but still a wood built trailer. Just wondering what your experience has been and what drove you to switch. Congrats on the new trailer!

Since you are considering the Rivian I thought this video would be of interest to you. They do a great job of providing their stats for each leg of the drive. The range is a just a big challenge. I don't think they ever drove more then 130 miles at a time. You can do it though, just more stops and longer stops. Capabilities are good, range not so much. When some cities are struggling to support people turning on their AC in the summertime I don't trust them to support everyone plugging in EVs that are trying to pull 100kw or more. Towing an Airstream 500 miles with a Rivian

TFL just released an IKE towing test for the F-150 Hybrid powerboost and the F-150 Lighting. That Lighting is very impressive towing. Range is still a major concern but that downhill and acceleration is really impressive. Downhill on the hybrid is not great but this is also at max tow capacity which the Ollie would not be.

Give this thread a read.

@routlawit is not even that fast. Takes about an hour when fast charging to restore 200 miles of range. So for a non-towing base range battery like this car you are talking an hour and a half! You are not towing anything very far very fast with this.

Totally agree. That was the part that bugged me the most as well. I agree this technology is not there yet for towing or even long road trips. It is interesting though with lots of things happening. Like the lithium-sulfur battery that some are projecting could do 900 miles. Early days still on all this, but exciting to see the innovation.

@John E Davies I did see the announcement. According to Autoweek "The bill makes exemptions for vehicles with a weight over 10,000 pounds, as well as emergency vehicles." I have not read the full bill though. Either way that bill is going to shake things up in Washington.

I thought this group might enjoy these videos. I had been wondering how these new EV trucks handle towing larger payload. Minus the range (which is a big issue) they seem very capable. If you are only a weekend warrior staying close to home and able to charge at home the Rivian seems pretty great. If you have ever been in Colorado and driven the IKE you will understand how serious of a towing test that is. The actual cost comparison video I found very interesting as I have been wondering what a break down like that would come out at. Results surprised me as well. Finally: The All-Electric Rivian R1T Takes On The World's Toughest Towing Test! Towing With An Electric Truck - Is It Cheaper Than Gas? Rivian R1T vs Ford F-150 PowerBoost

@neecy I am curious about your breakup details. A Lance 2075 has been on my radar for a little while. It has a layout closer to what I want. But I still struggle to put any stick and tin trailer above Oliver. Any time I see so much wood being assembled in a trailer now I just can stop thinking "this will not end well" 🙂. Wondering what your experience has been. They seem well built for that type of trailet. What is your reason for the switch?

While I don't disagree with this I am curious on the cost for this. I was talking to an owner who said the Oliver service center quoted them $25k to upgrade their existing AGM to lithium. That sounded pretty crazy to me. Not sure what size wires come with AGM but do they all have to by upgraded to go lithium? If not where in the world is that cost coming from?

As an Idahoan that @John E Davies often makes fun of, but not one that gives him cause 😉, I can speak to the changes in the Idaho parks. In northern Idaho we are very close to the Washington boarder and have some wonderful state parks. However in the last 2 years we have been overrun by Washington license plates. When I say overrun I mean if you go to any of the parks or even to a trailhead over the last 2 years >60% of the cars have been Washington plates. The Idaho plates are in the minority. Now given our proximity there is always a lot of boarder state cross over but it has really gotten bad the last two years. One of the primary drivers of this was that Washington closed a lot of their parks because of COVID so everyone just came to Idaho. I expect this will slow down moving forward. I just checked one of our most popular campgrounds for middle of July and found 104 RV electric sites available. Reaching all the way out to August (the end of the 9 month window) there are still lots. Now, this a planning a long ways out and as summer gets closer these sites will get picked up. However, this last Labor day I grabbed a spot in a state park 2 days before the weekend. The campground was very full though. I grab the last spot but the spot next to me was reserved but a no show, everything else was full.

Thanks @SeaDawg I think your statement helps. Maybe I was just misunderstanding the directional part of his statement. BTW this is not about how much a given device does or does not draw (not trying to prove how much a laptop does or does not draw). It was just about his 10x statement of it draw 10x more regardless of device, hence my random example. But if the statement was more about directionally needing to go from 12 to 120 that makes sense. It was not how I hear it but at least makes sense in that framing. For anyone reading this you will not understand the statement if you respond without listening to the clip 🙂

@VBistro I agree, that is why I am confused. My 80 number comes from Jason in the video when he states the invert amp rate is about 10x. So if your device draws 8amps it is drawing 80amps from the battery through the inverter. Maybe I miss understanding the video (take a listen at the link, the link starts right where he says it).

The cradlepoint is one of my hangups as well. As you noted the required subscription and the 2x2 antenna that is not going to work (at least well) with 5G is a no go. I would probably opt out and have to install a more capable system later.

@SeaDawg fair enough, cheap is probably not a great word here as they do make good stuff. My understanding with the Zamp ZS-30AP PWM charge controller is that you can only do 30 amps over it. So with 340 watt solar array you are right at the upper limit of it. So if you ever wanted to increase your array you would be forced to upgrade the charge controller. This plus as you noted if your draw down the battery all the way it will take you a few days of sun to get them fully charged back up with just the onboard solar array. If you had something to augment it with (generator, additional solar panels you can plug in to the side Zamp port, etc) the extra juice is nice. Just don't expect the solar array to charge it from "empty" to full in 5-6 of sun in a day. A MPPT controller sure would be nice though, especially for someone like me that lives in northern area of the US so the additional efficiency would help a lot. At about a 4k upgrade price that is about what 3 Lithionics batteries will cost you, plus you get the upgraded 3k watt inverter and AC soft start. And now you have batteries that will last longer, you can pull more power from them and they have a BMS which makes management/protection of those batteries easier for the owner (Assuming the firmware update makes the SOC reliable. If not maybe you would want to spend this money on different batteries that are reliable as it seems 50% of the list is all about SOC monitoring. Will be interesting to hear @Fritz follow up on it). Also reading this again if the inverter only causing the decibels to go to 60 that is not to bad (still in green and conversational level). But given how long it could take to charge these it means it could be running all day. There is one thing that is throwing me off. In this video Jason says the inverter efficiency is 10x. However, my understanding is the inverter (assuming I have the correct one Xantrex 817-3000 Inverter) it has a 91% efficiency rating. So unless I am not understanding the math a 10x amp draw does not sound right. An 80amp draw from a laptop for someone like me who works remote on a 390 Ah battery is a concern (gives you 4-5 hours being plugged in). This thread has caused me to do a lot of researching and been very educational on the power front!

Thanks for the info! For all the things I like about Oliver for the price point there are a few things that really bother me. I am very surprised they are still not using an MPPT controller. They do nice things with the solar setup but the lack of an MPPT controller and an inverter that creates a hum inside the trailer is a big miss IMHO. One that makes me question a money out lay like they ask. The loud non-ducted AC and the use of a 2x2 antenna instead of a 4x4 are a couple of the others. My first impression was they used quality components (as much as they could understanding they are limited by outside quality). The more I research though the more I am finding things like this were they seemed to just go on the cheep side. PMW? Really?

@Kathy111 have a look at this video about working with the inverter. The Oliver channel has some great videos going over the whole trailer. Since you could not do your walkthrough I would suggest watching their 2021 walkthrough video.

I would love to hear thoughts from owners out there that are 6'1" or taller. I am 6'1" and recently got to see one in person. The biggest concern I had was the shower. The owner had a wood floor insert in there (look great but), which reduces the height by 1 inch. When standing in the shower though I was short about 2 inches. My head hit the roof and I had to duck pretty good. Most smaller TT (< 28 feet) I have been look at seem to suffer a similar problem (head room in the shower for people over 6 feet) but not as bad. I believe the beds are 72 inches (including the dinette). So right at 6 feet it is a little tight too. However, I don't normally sleep in a totally straight and upright position so it is less of a concern for me then the shower is.

This has been the other one on my radar as the layout suits us a bit better. So it is a tug-a-war between the layout versus the 100% molded fiber glass (screwed in cabinets just beg to come lose 🙂). Plus the Oliver egg shell aerodynamics for towing. And just the general dislike of having particle board in the trailer.