Class B Shipments Increase in 2022 while Total RV Shipments Decline

The RV Industry Association posted sales numbers recently for the last month of 2022. 

Total RV shipments for 2022 ended with 493,268 units shipped -17.8% less than the 2021 record of 600,240 wholesale shipments. 

Class B shipments of 17,026 units in 2022 increased 23.1% from the 13,827 units shipped in 2021.

Further, Class B shipments continued to increase as a percentage of all motorhome units [Class A + Class B + Class C] and all RVs [motorhomes + trailers + truck campers]. 

Over the past decade, the percentage of Class B sales among all RV shipments rose from just under 1% in 2021 to 3.5% of RV shipments in 2022.

Similarly, Class B shipments among motorhome shipments rose from 7.5% in 2012 to 29.1 % in 2022.

Please post any questions, observations, or suggestions that you might have in the comments below.

Using a Folding Camping Oven

Vanlife in a Roadtrek or other Class B involves compromises, yet, campers are a creative lot and there are often compromises or work arounds that are fun to try. 

Roadtreks don't have ovens, so we tried out Coleman's camping oven  a couple of times this spring. The camping oven folds flat for storage and is easy to assemble when needed. Coleman has been selling the ovens for decades and initially designed them to set on top of their ubiquitous two burner gas camp stoves. 

You can find the find the ovens on Amazon or at Walmart. They are also available used at garage sales,  thrift stores, or you can find resellers posting them on sites like ebay. Prices generally appear to fall in the $40-60 range.

We initially set up the oven using the Roadtrek's two burner stove for breakfast cinnamon rolls at Mount Magazine State Park.

A couple of days later at Petit Jean State Park, we set the oven on top of our Solo Stove to bake some biscuits.

We watched several YouTube videos of other folks using the ovens on Coleman camp stoves and many experienced difficulties achieving sufficient baking temperature when it was windy. We didn't face this issue inside our Roadtrek for obvious reasons and the oven heated to the necessary temperature in minutes.

The oven also reached the necessary baking temperatures very quickly on top of the Solo stove. I was attentive in both cases to watch and remove the pan before burning...you don't want to wander away while baking. 

My only caution with the Solo stove is that the burning wood does result in some airborne ash that seasons your biscuits. 

All-in-all, we'll keep the oven folded in our Roadtrek storage and have it available when we want to try baking at camp. Let us know your experiences with baking while camping in the comments below...

 

Road Tripping in a Roadtrek

Interesting reporting by Jeff Zevely posted April 22, 2022, "Dad and daughter taking road trips of joy: Twizzlers and ice cream are two road snack favorites during the duo's 12,000 mile trip to Alaska."

Beth Phillips and her father Loren Phillips travel together in their Dodge Roadtrek that has surpassed 350,000 miles.

"Here's to us all, spending time with people we love and driving the wheels off life."

Learn How Roadtreks Were Made

Thanks to the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive, you can step through linked web pages to learn how Roadtreks were made. 

For newer Roadtreks you can view a short video, "The Making of a Roadtrek RV | A Visit to the Roadtrek Manufacturing Facility," posted in June 2014 on the RV Lifestyle YouTube channel.

Changes within the Class B Market

 I have been searching online in Class B forums and RV industry publications to pull together data on the sales and relative market shares of Class B manufacturers. My search continues for a source of data and I would love to hear from you via a comment below or an email if know of places where I can find more information. In the interim, I am posting a table and chart below to show what I've found so far.

Sales of Class B camper vans began in the 1970s and have really picked up steam here in the last couple of years.

Canadian manufacturers Pleasure Way and Roadtrek were dominant in early years with Home & Park Motorhomes/Roadtrek having 20% market share through 2019.

In the last couple of years acquisition and consolidation of RV manufacturers generally can also be seen in the market for Class Bs. Just two manufacturers, Thor and Winnebago accounted for over 71% of Class B sales according to reporting by RV Business in "SSI: RV Industry Sets Retail Sales Record." Note that SSI only reported the top three firms in the last two years. 

Banner Year in 2021 for RVs and Class Bs

The RV Industry Association posted sales numbers recently for the last month of 2021 finalizing what everyone knew was an excellent sales year. 

Total RV shipments for 2021 ended with a record 600,240 wholesale shipments. 2021 shipments surpassed the 2017 total of 504,599 shipments by 19% and 2020 total shipments of 430,412 by 39.5%.

I also updated the chart from our January 17th post, "Changes in RV Industry Market Share, Sales, Shipments over the past Six Years," 

Class B shipments of 13,827 units in 2021 increased 91.5% from the 7,222 units shipped in 2020 and a whopping 551% increase over 2,213 units shipped a decade earlier in 2012.

For motorized RVs the Class B increase of 551% over the last decade exceeded the increase in Class A shipments of 5.3% or Class C shipments of 135%. Total RV shipments of both travel trailers and motorized RV's increased 110% during the decade from 2021 through 2021.

Please post any questions or observations that you might have in the comments below.

Some of our Favorite #VanLife or Travel Vloggers

There are many, many people living #vanlife with YouTube channels. I'll pass along links to a couple of vloggers that we enjoy and follow. 

Catherine Gregory is living full time in a pickup camper. She primarily posts videos of her travels in the western United States. 

The quality of her hiking and backpacking videos is impressive.   

Tread for the Globe with Chris, Marianne, and their van, Trudy. They describe themselves as an ordinary couple  on an extraordinary journey as they set out to visit every country in the world either in their van or by backpack. 

We began following their travels around the United Kingdom and as they began their journey around the world by crossing Europe toward the Middle East and beyond. 

They've spent much of the last year or more traveling around Turkey and their twice weekly videos have provided really amazing views of life in a country that most of us know little about. 

Chris and Marianne returned to the U.K. over the holidays to visit family and will be starting off 2022 by driving across the United States.

Do you have your favorite travel or #vanlife vlogger? If so, consider dropping a note and url into a comment below.

Changes in RV Industry Market Share, Sales, Shipments over the past Six Years

I spent a few minutes reviewing monthly sales reports from the RV Industry Association web site yesterday and set up a couple of quick spreadsheets to permit easier tracking of sales in the future.

While the numbers essentially confirm what we have been observing in recent years, I find that it is powerful to dig a bit further into what is happening.

Total RV Shipments have increased quite a bit over the past six years from 430,691 units in 2016 to 559,743 units shipped through November of 2021...an increase of 30%.

Within this broad trend, shipments of Towable RVs grew from 275,950 units (or, 87.3% of Total RV Shipments) in 2016 to 506,952 units (or, 90.6% of Total RV Shipments) through the first 11 months of 2021.

Overall, motorhome shipments fell from 54,741 units (or, 12.7% of Total RV Shipments) in 2016 to 52,791 units (or, 9.4% of Total RV Shipments) through November 2021.

The Class B numbers relative to their motorized Class A & C cousins are particularly interesting. Class B shipments grew from 4,087 units (or, just under 1% of Total RV Shipments and 7.5% of Total Motorhome Shipments) to 12,933 units (or, 2.3% of Total RV Shipments and a whopping 24.5% of Total Motorhome Shipments). 

It will be interesting to keep following these trends over the next few years and see to what extent pandemic related issues involving supply chains or work-life balance may alter buying patterns.

Please post any questions or observations that you might have in the comments below.