When Alex Xiao came up with the idea for a power-generating recreational vehicle in 2021, he was spending much of his time traveling through Tibet and other parts of China in one.
Four years later, that vehicle will debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2026.
Evotrex, a City of Industry-based startup, emerged from stealth in early November armed with $16 million in pre-series A funding to race to debut the first-ever power-generating recreational vehicle. The funding round was backed by investors such as Unity Ventures, Vision Plus Capital and Kylinhall Partners – with the founders of Xstar Capital and Anker Innovations LTD leading the round.
Perhaps Evotrex is a no-brainer venture for Xiao. He was the first product manager at Anker back in 2011 and pioneered mobile power storage at Anker. That includes the first power bank the company produced.
Xiao started Anker Solix, the mobile power arm of Anker that makes products used by festivals, doomsday preppers and off-the-grid campers. Mobile power quickly became a genre of technologies Anker is now most well-known for, and Xiao managed $600 million – half of Anker’s business – before he left.
“Evotrex represents the future of mobile power,” Steven Yang, founder of Anker, said in a statement. “As someone who has built companies that generate and deliver energy, I see the same potential here: the ability to fundamentally change how and where people access reliable power. This team isn’t just creating an RV trailer; they’re redefining what (off-the-grid) living and adventure can look like.”
Xiao and his co-founder – who coined the name Solix when she worked at Anker – were intimately aware of the power problems RV users faced. Both spent months living in RVs full-time, with Xiao traveling from Washington to Oregon to Las Vegas and lastly, to Los Angeles – all in an RV.
Staying out further – and longer
Evotrex uses technology that allows the gas engine to charge and recharge the battery pack that powers appliances heating and cooling in the RV, allowing people in the U.S. to experience its vast natural landscapes off the grid for longer periods of time. The concept has widely been adopted by the electric vehicle industry in China, but RV original equipment manufacturers have long relied on generators, which are less efficient and waste petrol power.
This allows Evotrex to harness more power to heat the carpets, run the refrigerator, dim the lights and play music – all with the view of a clear night sky.
“Some people, they’re trying to stay in the wild for four or five days, even longer,” Xiao said. “They go surfing, they go climbing, they go hunting. They want to stay there for four days, five days. But they have no way to make it cozy like home for that long. So we’re trying to build a lifestyle.”
Evotrex is part of a growing number of hybrid vehicles meant to withstand unpaved roads, steep mountains and offroad driving for weekend adventures.
Pebble, a Sunnyvale-based developer of a futuristic electric travel trailer, has raised around $54 million since its inception in 2022, per PitchBook. Telo Trucks, a San Carlos-based manufacturer of an electric pickup truck, raised $20 million in September. Grounded, based in Michigan, develops smart technology-enabled camper vans.
“The entire purpose of building this company is not just to bring new technology in,” Xiao said. “We are product people, so the first thought that came to our mind when we decided to do this is thinking who is our customer? What kind of problem do they need to solve? The younger RVers, they’re trying to go to far more remote places than former RVers. Among newer RVers, they’re now facing this kind of a power shortage.”
