I Toured The Outrageously Expensive 16,000-Pound Living Vehicle Camper And It’s Like A Mobile Fortress

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If you dip into the world of RVs from startup companies, you will encounter designs that make you cock your head and think. Maybe the camper is built to fend off bears and bullets or charges your EV. Or, maybe you can buy a Class A coach that also doubles as your yacht. Startup company Living Vehicle wants to sell you a camper that, fully loaded, will cost you $639,995. That’s not a typo and yes, that’s more than a lot of houses! I finally got to see it in person and it’s just as mind-boggling as its numbers would suggest. This thing is like a fortress with three axles.

The Los Angeles Auto Show has been surprisingly fun this year. For a while, it seemed as if automakers had given up on the auto show. In our travels, we’ve come across empty show spaces, missing automakers, and really a lack of things to get excited about. This year seems to be different. Detroit was a bit more filled in and Los Angeles? This show is honestly a blast. Automakers have brought out their fun concepts, upcoming products, and even experiences such as riding a Motocompacto. If you’re into campers like I am, Los Angeles also has a lot to love. I already showed you the Pebble Flow, but there’s an entire overlanding section as well. Outside sits Living Vehicle, and the company’s camper is wide open for you to tour through. So let’s take a look at what you get for the price of some decent real estate.

Living Vehicle

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I last wrote about this startup in April, so I’ll refresh your brain on what is going on here:

California-based Living Vehicle was founded in 2017 by husband and wife team Matthew and Joanna Hofmann. Matthew is an architect while Joanna is a designer. The pair say that they have spent years living out of buses, vans, and travel trailers while running a business called Hofmann Architecture. The Hofmanns say that they’ve been living out of small mobile spaces for over a decade and they came to a realization that none of their tiny homes catered that well to full-timers. They couldn’t find a camper that did the job to their liking so they decided to build an off-grid camper of their own.

Since 2017, Living Vehicle has sold out its small production line every year. The company builds about 25 units a year and given that the company’s cheapest option starts at $359,995, it’s definitely a vehicle for those flush with cash. Living Vehicle is also trying to reinvent the RV itself, saying that its campers aren’t “RVs” but “LVs,” or the company’s name in initials.

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Living Vehicle builds campers for full-timers. These are people who don’t just travel in their rigs, but live out of them. Since these campers move around frequently and are always lived in, they need to stand the test of time. Likewise, the camper needs ample facilities and capacities to endure a longer stay outside of a campground.

The Living Vehicle HD30 Pro

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Now, keep in mind that I said it’s one of the “most” campers money can buy. That’s because there’s just so much to this thing. Every number on the spec sheet is incredible. The 30-foot trailer weighs 16,000 pounds, carries 4,000 pounds of gear, is powered by a 72 kWh house battery, and juices up from up to 6 kW of solar from giant roof solar panels and additional portable panels. In terms of holding tanks, you get 100 gallons for fresh water, 62 gallons for gray water, and 45 gallons for your waste. See what I mean?

All Living Vehicle builds start with what appears to be a robust structure. The company says that its trailers have a chassis of aluminum, a structure of aluminum, and a floor of aluminum. The walls are finished on the outside in anodized aluminum. Living Vehicle says that its all-aluminum welded construction should ensure that the camper stands the test of time.

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Looking at the structure in person, I admit that I first thought of the Living Vehicle HD30 Pro as a pimped-out cargo trailer. Upon close inspection, I was delighted by good attention to detail and very good fit and finish. Living Vehicle doesn’t say, but this aluminum is also quite thick. You can see where the 16,000 pounds of base weight comes from. This thing is a tank! Or perhaps like a bank vault.

The trailer can also be equipped with off-road tires and it appears that the structure is pretty protected. It rides on a trio of 7,000-pound torsion axles. As I said before, this is one of the few trailers that I’ve encountered with clearance measurements. Living vehicle says that the ground clearance under the trailer’s body is 16 inches and departure ground clearance is 22 inches. Living Vehicle touts this as a go-anywhere all-season camper. It does look like it can go pretty far off-pavement. However, keep in mind that 16,000 pounds is a lot of weight to recover should you get stuck.

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Another Living Vehicle quirk is the camper’s massive solar array. In the HD30 Pro, you get 4.4 kW of solar panels on the roof. The solar panels take up so much space that the equipment that would normally be on the camper’s roof is now stored in the camper’s basement compartments. I’m ok with that as it means fewer spots to leak in the future. Living Vehicle is so serious about solar that when you park you can extend two 48-inch aluminum awnings. Those awnings, which move almost painfully slow, reveal even more solar power.

Toss in 1.6 kW of portable solar panels and you’ll get a whopping 6 kW of solar power. As I noted before, this tops up a 72 kWh lithium battery. If your off-grid stay lasts long enough, there’s also a generator so you can keep the power flowing. Living Vehicle also says the trailer could charge an electric car.

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Something neat that Living Vehicle also does is that the company can upfit your tow truck to match your trailer, be it paint, accessories, or a lift kit and tires.

The Interior

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So, what’s the interior of a $639,995, 16,000-pound travel trailer like? The best comparison I could conjure up is that it’s like a 5-star luxury hotel room. It’s like one of those obscenely expensive hotel rooms where two nights cost more than one of my paychecks. Don’t worry, David pays me well. Hotels get really expensive!

Living Vehicle offers a number of variations of the same floorplan. Up front is the primary bedroom and you get an option of a queen bed, a king bed, dual twin beds, queen bunk beds, and the ability to turn the bed into a zero-gravity split queen bed. Living Vehicle also allows you to turn the primary bedroom into an office.

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The rest of the camper appears to be the same across the floorplans. In the center of the unit is a large bathroom. Living Vehicle loves using residential-sized equipment, so you get to sleep in an actual queen bed and that shower? Oh yeah, it’s more than big enough to spread out and get clean. It’s a shame how much money you have to spend to not fight your own shower every morning.

Behind the bathroom is a combination dining room and kitchen. The trailer is fully equipped for some luxury living from its large refrigerator to the stovetop, sink, island, and even dishwasher! Oh yeah, this camper comes with a laundry hutch with a combo washer and dryer plus a central vacuum system, too. Living Vehicle wasn’t kidding when it said these are for full-timers. Also helping full-timers is the camper’s optional atmospheric water generation system.

Living Vehicle

This Watergen system extracts moisture out of the air, cleans it, purifies it, and fills the fresh tank. Depending on where the camper is parked, the Watergen system can add 5 gallons of water to your tank.

Living Vehicle says that the camper is equipped to camp in all seasons, but you can option it with a package that upgrades the windows to dual-pane glass, adds an aluminum radiant floor, and adds independent electric heaters to the interior. These allow the camper to be comfortable down to -4 F temperatures and heat up to 120 F.

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There are still more options, including Starlink capability, a home theater, and a high-end stereo. One of my favorite parts of the Living Vehicle HD series is the deployable patio. I like patios as a neat way to expand space while also giving the camper an airy feeling. Living Vehicle says the patio holds 1,500 pounds and I believe it. The patio felt sturdy, unlike the decks I’ve walked on attached to trailers costing a fraction of the price.

The quality of everything in the interior was exactly as I would expect given the price. The walls inside were metal, the wood felt nice to the touch, and as I said, everything sort of felt like a really nice hotel room. Heck, the materials in this camper felt better than some of the million-dollar coaches I tour during RV trade shows. Most importantly, I could definitely see this trailer still kicking over 10 years from now.

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Expensive, But Not Insulting

What I loved about my tour of the camper was the fact that while this monster camper comes with a monster price, it’s actually no worse than other campers that cost this or more. It’s as nice inside as a high-end Class A coach, comes with the equipment that will allow you to camp off-grid for a while, and it feels like it should last a long time. Living Vehicle expects most of its customers to be looking for a house they can take just about anywhere. I’m still not sure about the “anywhere” bit, but the quality appears to be there.

The Living Vehicle HD30 Pro is $639,995 before options, and that options list is lengthy. You can get a bed that sits on a suspension ($9,995), a mobile recording studio room ($23,995), a 6.5 kW Cummins generator ($21,995), a special alternator for your tow vehicle ($15,995), the water generator ($25,995), a home theater ($13,995), off-road tires and upgraded brakes ($14,995), and the four-season package ($13,995).

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If this is all too much for you, the base model HD30 is $399,995. You get the same lavish interior, but a 14,000-pound base weight, a 4.8 kWh battery, 600 Watts of solar, and a GVWR of 18,000 pounds. The equipment is otherwise similar, even the four-season insulation. Living Vehicle also sells a compact version of the trailer that’s 24 feet long, but that one is still $299,995 and starts at 11,000 pounds.

This is a trailer I’d love to test. I’d specifically like to take it out to somewhere frozen and see how cozy I could be. I don’t think Living Vehicle will be revolutionizing camping, but the HD30 is pretty cool in my eyes. I may never be able to afford this, but if you can and you’re Living Vehicle’s target demographic, I think you’ll like it.

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(Images: Author, unless otherwise noted.)

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92 thoughts on “I Toured The Outrageously Expensive 16,000-Pound Living Vehicle Camper And It’s Like A Mobile Fortress”

  1. For that much money, you could build an actual home here in NorCal and not in some rural location, but here in Sonoma County. $150K for a lot in one of the burn zones is realistic. Utilities, etc. are all there. Add in a Living Home or Connect Home or even a more pedestrian prefab home and you’re in for less than just the purchase price of this thing. When you add in a tow vehicle, storage, etc., you can buy an actual home in NorCal for the purchase price of the trailer alone.

    Gonna say that’s a solid nope for me. That’s a ludicrous amount of money for that thing, regardless of how well it’s built or whatever other value propositions they can make. It’s gonna depreciate like mad, which is probably something you’re not gonna see on NorCal real estate.

    Compared to any other market, which will be more reasonable than NorCal, it just gets more and more financially unattractive to own this thing.

        1. It’s a different kind of person buying this thing. While this thing depreciates, their real estate/investment portfolios are making up for the loss several times over.

            1.  (Assuming you’re not rich).

              Far from it. They don’t stay rich without some kind of workaround. I’m convinced most of the RV-life influencers are doing it just to register their rig to an LLC and write off the depreciation on their truck and trailer.

  3. For comparison:
    Most expensive Airstream (30’) 2023 unit starts at $191,500. They have cheaper options too.

    My sister and retired Air Force officer brother-in-law lived for the past 13 months in a 2019 28’ Airstream traveling the US. They were certainly comfortable by van living standards but could not do the extras this one could. Eg: -4F, boondocking for more than 3-4 days, stand on patio, have a washer/dryer, etc.
    This one is for the next step up niche buyer.

    1. It’s a Cummins Onan RV QG 6500 LP, ~$7,200 for just the generator. Way more reliable and durable than a Generac or whatever, and it can be integrated more seamlessly into the house electrical.

        1. You’re right, there is still a heck of a lot of markup but I suspect that it’s the only way these things get made. They aren’t selling all that many of these things.

  5. Is that watergen system just a dehumidifier with a hose? Same principle. For over a half million I want my rv to move under its own power. Why soheavy, I appreciate quality, but don’t need a bank vault. I would like a summary of how the 3 axles work independently.
    And not to be too critical I haven’t seen any writer from the old site to autopian that had an eye towards elite level experience since fancy Kristen.

  6. Seeing that huge Caravan and the palm trees made me recall Mel Gibsons characters caravan on the beach in Lethal Weapon and how ideal that looked. First vanlifer I can think of.

  7. I’m impressed there’s a market for this. I’m horrified there’s a market for this.

    If nothing else…I love to try and make a cheaper one that’s better

    1. I’m impressed there’s a market for this. I’m horrified there’s a market for this.

      A great argument for raising capital gains tax rates if I ever saw one.

    2. At a glance, you’re talking at least a dually diesel, and even then it’s not clear to me whether the numbers I’m seeing are for a bumper-pull trailer like this or a fifth wheel (the latter of which tends to be higher).

  9. I would really like to have someone from the company explain what exactly is involved in the $15,000 wheel and brakes package.

    And for that matter, the “special alternator” for the tow vehicle. For another 15 grand, it had better alter reality!

    2. They’re selling ~25 a year. Yeah, there’s a lot of markup but it’s that or it doesn’t get made at all. I can’t imagine the margins on these things are all that great.

    3. Most heavy duty pickups can be optioned with dual alternators. If you’re buying this rig, your truck probably already has all the bells and whistles.

    4. If you are asking such silly questions like “what am I actually getting for my $700,000?”, they are probably not too interested in talking to you. Haha.

  10. HD30Pro has a lot of silly gimmicks. HD30 plus a 4×4 F350 Platinum would be $500,000, comparable to a nice Class A motor home and you can go places in the truck.

  11. Quite seriously, can someone get me a profile of someone who can afford this RV LV and its mandatory mega tow-rig and who enjoys hauling this thing around from RV park to RV park and then doing all the hookups, etc.

    I don’t get it. If it were mine, I’d have it delivered to wherever I wanted stay for a while, and fly in….. and have my meals catered in…and have maid service too.

    Gee, when I think about it, it’s beginning to sound exactly like staying at a nice mountain lodge but with more hassles.

    2. HA! Exactly what a friend of my parents did many years ago. They had an employee drive the motor home to, say, Boise, ID, fly him home then they would fly out to go on their vacation drive usually leaving the motor home at another location to be picked up by their driver. Half the time they stayed in resorts or resort lodges not overnight in the motor home.

  12. “I could definitely see this trailer still kicking over 10 years from now.”

    For that price tag it better still be kicking by the time the sun goes kablooey 5 billion years from now.
    I could pay over a hundred years’ worth of rent for my current house and still be cheaper off than if I bought this thing. And that’s assuming you’re not paying for a parking spot for the LV (lol) either.

        2. It depends on your definition of “quite nice”. I’m just outside of Baltimore and the house I started paying for in 2003 and is valued at around 220K right now is quite nice to me.

        4. In fabulous Cherry Tree PA you could get 12 3 bedroom homes on the west branch of the Susquehanna. And young people say they can’t afford a house. My 15 year mortgage is under $500 a month. That is less than these charities asking $19.99 a month.

    1. Why though? If somebody has 600k to throw away I’d rather they buy a silly toy from some (upper) middle class dude who hopefully puts it back into circulation. Much better than if they put the money in a Swiss bank account where it gathers dust for a century and doesn’t benefit anybody who isn’t a Swiss bank.

  14. That island would drive anybody insane! It’s right in the way!
    All I can say is yes, it’s nice…but WOW pricing is ridiculous
    Also, HA! No one is going to start saying LV instead of RV

  15. I full brick pantsed the price tag and skipped down here to say THIS THING BETTER BE EFFING GOOD
    Edit – So it isn’t that good, it is really well built though and very suited for the purpose. But woof, that weight is ungodly. I get that it is the systems, but man that is not an efficient thing to get anywhere no matter how you swing it. Not that people in the recreational camping scene are worried about the pull, but it isn’t cheap to move that.

  16. There’s something about this monstrosity that perfectly and comedically delineates the wealth gap in America.

    From the patio with “Target grade” furniture, (a fold up umbrella… a few uncomfortable folding chairs) to the washing machine placed just a few feet from the foot of the bed in what is supposedly the master suite.

    The “landlord special” of tiny bathroom sinks, faucets and appliances. The wide open storage of fire extinguishers as if to say “you’re gonna need these at some point in your miserable existence.”
    Small single pane windows, creaky metal steps to get in or out.

    The whole thing screams the sad song of a tiny New York or London apartment. Because that’s all you can afford.
    But the price clearly says you’ve made it. You’re a big shot now!

    Who was this made for?
    It’s a mobile condo for rich people built with poor people amenities.

    It’s hilarious at best, yet somehow insulting to both sides of the monetary spectrum.

      1. Somewhere between the “fucking” and “nuts” is a pure sadness of an entire generation that will never experience real ownership of anything.

        It’s a scary reality.

        1. Because thanks to the internet they have deluded themselves into thinking they should be able to afford houses and toys that cost this much
          Fun fact 80% of non QB NFL Players are broke 2 years after retirement. The minimum wage is I believe $800,000. Who else makes that for 5 months a year work.

  17. It’s interesting to me that, as we were discussing on the thread about the Pebble Flow, there’s no slide outs.

    Apparently, while they can greatly increase space, it seems there’s no way to make them durable. If a $600k+ trailer can’t make them work well, it doesn’t seem possible.

      1. The patio isn’t a slide out, in the sense of a section of the trailer sliding out to make more interior living space. From the looks of it, it doesn’t even slide out. It folds down from the side and is supported by cables.

    2. A Mercedes Actros was my first thought, word association probably, A medium sized traction engine or a modified railway locomotive should do the trick just as well.

    4. A medium duty chassis, Ford F650, Freightliner M2 or similar. Some of the newer dually pickups might hack it but a proper class 6 truck is a better choice.

        1. I don’t think this trailer is set up for “overlanding” so any on road tow vehicle will be able to work on gravel roads or hard packed dirt. Mud, large ruts and potholes will either hang it up or cause damage but IIRC the rule of thumb for off road is halve the tow rating so you’d be looking at at a 4×4 F550 or so or a medium chassis.

      1. I work in a town with plenty of people who could afford this. I know of a guy who decided not to file an insurance claim when his new $90k BMW got stolen, because he was embarrassed that he left the key fob in it. He just ate the loss and bought a new one.

        1. Asking for proof. My favorite is the son of the 13th in line to the Saudi throne who took his date to red lobster had his BMW stolen and when he realized it walked across the street to a dealer and bought a new car saying “if they stole it they appreciated it more than I so they can have it”

      1. nope. this is not a star wagon. maybe a big star like Tom Cruise buys, then his production company rents it to the production. It’s part of his “kit”, that $ isn”t taxed at the same rate as income, if at all. So Tom gets to buy the rig tax free as a biz expense.

    4. I would like more information on the $15,995 alternator. Holy cow, that’s about $15,000 more than the Cadillac dealership would charge for a replacement alternator!

  21. In a fantasy life where I have 15000 acres of land in Wyoming, this thing would be awesome to tow out every year for hunting season. In reality, it seems like this is going to become the “billionaire at Burningman” pro-model.

    1. They started out way cheaper (I think the first year they were around $150k.) These are built to be upgraded and retrofitted to stay out there as technology advances. If you want to go full time nomadic and are going to stay on road / dirt road, I don’t think there’s better than this out there.

        1. You aren’t going rock crawling in anything nice, so that’s kind of a moot point. These things are designed to make it on somewhat okay dirt roads, which is what their target customer wants. Great system for hitting a lot of BLM sites, but I wouldn’t go nuts with it.

    2. $400K is not unheard of for A-class pushers with lesser build quality. This appears to be a sound build and therefore a reasonable cost for full-timers who plan to hold onto a trailer for many years.

      As Mercedes points out here and in earlier articles, the typical RV coming out of Elkhart, Indiana starts falling apart before it even gets to the dealer. That’s not to say this thing is perfect, but quality builds cost money.

      1. Until proven otherwise I’m going to assume almost all of it goes into hookers and blow. I see nothing here to justify anywhere near the prices being asked.

      2. But correct me if I am wrong, yeah like that won’t happen anyhow, a Pusher class A has an engine, transmission, and powers itself? This is a trailer, it gets pulled everywhere. So about 60% of the cost of a pusher is the drive train so this trailer $600,000 is only 40% of a pusher?

          1. You are right I was just replying to the right comment to express my disdain of marketing hype. Since advertising fraud is no longer illegal they just lie about everything.

      1. “Sure the price is insane. But how does your larger custom house look after you’ve dragged it 100 miles and plopped it down somewhere else?”

        Lets first see how THIS thing looks after 100 miles. Or how well it all works after someone’s lived in it off grid for a couple of years. As others have pointed out its not like the industry has a reputation for quality.

        This thing is 8′ x 30′ right? So 240 sqft or 250 sqft to be generous. Per square footage I could have built a 250 sqft house, watched it fall into the swamp when I was done with it, had a second house built at the next swamp stop, watched THAT fall into the swamp when I was done with it, had a third 250 sqft house built at my next swamp stop, burned THAT one down till it fell over into the swamp and built a fourth house and still had money left over.

        Custom tiny houses in this size run about $70k. Add in the panels ($17k for 6kW), battery (100kWh ~ $13k) and other fancy things you might hit $105k so where exactly IS that extra $535k going?

        1. It’s funny how we “rationalize” the cost of stupid shit that most of us will never have a real need for.
          Not gonna play that game, but we live in a society of fools who have little ability to “see” the big picture over their own selfish wants.

          This thing would need to bear proof, bomb proof, nuclear war proof and a whole list of other stuff before I would ever consider a price such as this has.

          1. Everyone needs shelter. I admire anyone who could make a 250 sqft trailer work as a comfortable, permanent home, especially off grid like this one claims to be capable of. My only real problem with it is the price, why would anyone spend $640k for something that can be had for maybe $105k?

            Even if the company offered a 50 year bumper to bumper unlimited replacement guarantee I wouldn’t trust them to exist next year, much less in 2070.

            I don’t imagine they’ll sell many but at that price maybe they only need to find a few suckers… er, valued clients.

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