Up until now, California trailer builder Polydrops has been focused on building some of the lightest, most geometrical RVs out there. But the type of young, adventurous camping enthusiasts limber enough to squeeze themselves into an ultralight teardrop eventually grow up, have a family and sell the teardrop. Polydrops is now growing with them via the all-new P21, its largest trailer yet ... by a long shot. The new travel trailer breaks free from the confines of tiny teardrop derivation to sleep the entire family (kinda) and supply an all-electric off-grid base camp. And it'll slip its way to camp with a sleek, narrow profile unlike anything else on the road.
At some point, you reach a limit to how much downsizing and lightweighting you can do with your camper lineup while still providing buyers a serviceable space in which to sleep, cook and lounge while out on the road. For Polydrops, we can't imagine that limit being anywhere south of the P19 Shorty, a sub-12-foot (3.7-m) teardrop weighing as little as 640 lb (290 kg).
It was clearly time for the young caravan company to grow its lineup in the opposite direction. RV companies are all about pulling in customers when they're young and sticking with them as their tastes and bank accounts mature – hard to do that when every new teardrop micro-camper you produce is as small or smaller than the last.
To avoid losing those maturing customers to other brands by default, Polydrops expands up and out with the all-new P21, a family-ready trailer that for the first time in company history wears a model name that matches its length. It measures the full 21 feet (6.4 m) long, adding about 7.5+ feet (2.3+ m) of extra stretch over any previous Polydrops trailer.
Look carefully at the P21's profile, and you can make out the Polydrop DNA by way of the dramatic curve over the door and the faceted sides, not to mention the soft, satiny sheen of its naked aluminum skin. However, Polydrops employed a more extreme aerodynamics program on the new model to help compensate for its extra size and weight, letting computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software guide its drafting hand.
The result, oddly enough, is a trailer that shows more of a teardrop taper from its bird's eye view than from its side. Overall, it's more of a fish or projectile shape since both the front and rear ends taper in drastically, the former swooping down and in to a wedge nose, the latter angling into a narrow boat tail with a planar rear-end shaped into a tall, inverted trapezoid capped with a slight roof spoiler.
Despite the new trailer's substantially larger size and volume, Polydrops doesn't shy away from its predilection for electric power. Owners can leave the propane tank hooked up to the grill at home because the all-electric P21 uses a 5-kWh battery bank to run onboard appliances like the air conditioner/heat pump and available induction cooktop. A 1,300-W solar charging system feeds the battery throughout the trip.
Polydrops keeps things open and flexible inside the P21, where the only fixed furnishings are the queen-size rear master bed, integrated convertible dining lounge and storage console next to the doorway. Because of the tapered rear wall, the bed has a bit of a unique polygonal shape. At night, the dining table drops down to fill out the front portion of the bed, and during the day, the front mattress sides serve as vis-a-vis dining benches for the lifted table.
The rest of the interior furnishings follow a light, modular drop-in model, starting with a "cooking station" that drops atop the entryway storage console and brings an 1,800-W induction cooktop, 700-W microwave and overhead cabinet.
Notice there's no sink in the kitchen module – that's reserved for the "sanitation module," which taps a Dometic Go faucet with supplying water to the sink basin from the included 34-L fresh water tank. As its name suggests, the sanitation unit is also a light bathroom with a water heater, shower pan, Geyser EcoShower system and portable toilet.
The final two optional pieces of the puzzle put the front of the trailer to use. The first is an available 58 x 60-in (147 x 152-cm) kid's bed that should be large enough for two small children, though definitely not ready to support them through to young adulthood with that limited 5-foot length. Buyers can also add a 25-L Dometic CFX3 cooler box-style fridge below the kid's bed.
To be honest, it feels like Polydrops spent too much time in the wind tunnel and not enough time working with people experienced in travel trailer floor plan design. Because of that unusually short front bed, the P21 doesn't feel like a very practical four-sleeper family trailer, and the clock will be ticking from day one to the point when children outgrow it. There's no mention of a roof rack or rooftop tent option, either, and with the solar panels mounted up there, it probably isn't coming.
The P21 could work okay as a two-person travel trailer, but then it just carries a lot of wasted empty space up front and could be cut down by a good 25 percent or more in total length. The trailer interior reaches an even 6 feet (1.8 m) at its highest point, so tall enough for most people but some crouching will likely be necessary up front.
All that said, the focus on aerodynamics and a modular floor plan should make the P21 a solid choice for pairing with an electric tow vehicle, providing a compromise between EV range-optimizing design and livable comfort. So it isn't the roomiest, most well-equipped trailer that nearly $40,000 will buy you, but it is quite sleek and light for a 21-foot trailer, starting between 1,200 and 1,800 lb (544 and 816 kg) dry, depending on setup and options.
The P21 is available for preorder now and has a listed starting price of US$38,900. Polydrops has not yet priced out the individual add-on modules but is sure to do so when preordering turns to configuring ahead of a planned Q4 2024 production start.
Source: Polydrops
