Robert Johans

14 Pages·2012·0.47 MB·English

Nest Caravans - Robert Johans

Robert - Guest: Hi, this is Robert Johans. I am a CEO of Nest Caravans and you can find
out more about our product at nestcaravans.com.
Stephen - Host: Today, we have Robert Johans joining us. Robert is the CEO of Nest
Caravans and he'll be helping us understand how Nest Caravan and the
design came about and how it's being built. Thank you, Robert. Tell us
about the day you first had the idea for the Nest Caravan?
Robert - Guest: I was on a road trip with my son returning from Los Angeles to our home
based here in Oregon and I've been thinking about the future of travel
trailers having had quite a bit of experiences in vintage fiberglass travel
trailers. I thought it would be a time to now create a brand new product.
The one that does not look like anything else in the marketplace, the one
that provides the certain level of comfort and features that were not
available. That was the summer of 2011, I believe.
Stephen - Host: It's a fabulous design. It's hard to describe over an audio interview.
People just have to go and see it. It's modern, it's sleek, it looks it's
aerodynamic and lightweight, and it doesn't have swirls on it. As people
listening to this interview know, there's younger boomers like myself, I'm
going to be 50, and we are turned off by the design aesthetics of some of
the RV manufacturers. Now, I'm not beating up on the other
manufacturers out there. There are some great designs and innovation
that I think is slowly happening. Maybe you can tell us a little about your
design aesthetic and do you echo not liking swirls and bare claws?
Robert - Guest: That is, indeed, a fact. It came to my attention that there just wasn't any
really good automotively phased design out there. Typically, these travel
trailers of whatever are rectilinear box. It was a lot of superfluous stuff
attached to the outside of the body including the swirls and super graphic
that you mentioned. Nothing other than, perhaps, Airstream in the
United States, provides a travel trailer that does not include all that stuff.
We are, by education and training, designers here and we felt that there
was a place for a sophisticated and again, automotively styled travel
trailer. The one that had not been seen in the market before.
Stephen - Host: There's a lot of European cues and I don't want to overplay that. It seems
like, Europe, especially Germany and all of the big design shows there

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when you go to the RVs, they really have a certain aesthetic. I think it's
slowly seeping into the designer's palates here in North America. I think a
lot of the designer palates are dusty from the 1970's and if they could get
away with it-
Robert - Guest: That's the case. That's true.
Stephen - Host: If they could still put the orange plow, they would and so when I've seen
this, I was very excited to explore more. I see it's a smaller travel trailer.
Smaller doesn't necessarily mean a smaller interior. Tell us about some of
the design aspects you built-in and the thought process to make the
interior livable as it is.
Robert - Guest: Well, you made a good point. We did look at a lot of European products
for some inspiration and it seemed like the Europeans were leap years
ahead of where we are here in United States. Yes, the point is, that the
Nest Caravan still is a relatively small compact travel trailer. The purpose
of that is to keep the weight down to make it easily pulled by your
standard midsize crossover or SUV. Yet, we try to maximize the space
inside for true livability. Now, we're not trying to encourage people to
think of this travel trailer as a motorhome or we're not trying to deal it
with a lot of the extraneous stuff that might be found in a motorhome.
We do want to make it as elegant and it's just the essentials you put
inside.
Most of the decisions about the interior design was actually based upon
some market research we conducted. For example, the number one thing
that we've discovered was that, people wanted a queen size bed and a
bed that could stay down at all times. Just that mere fact of a 60 by 78 or
80-inch wide bed dictates a lot of the internal geometries. Number two in
the list was a wet bath. Now, that include the shower of one kind or
another. A certain thing was head room. People wanted to be able to
stand comfortably in these things. We try to incorporate all those
components into the design of our trailer.
Stephen - Host: Really well designed. Can you tell us a little about the design process and
maybe some of the collaborations with people you work with to come up
with this design? Because it looks like a lot of work went into this, a lot of
thought.
Robert - Guest: That's, indeed, the case. We try to be as thoughtful about how this trailer
came together as possible. A lot of that comes from my own experience

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restoring vintage fiberglass trailers. In fact, that's what led me to believe
that there was a market for a new travel trailer of this size and this style.
Speaking of styling, we have ... The actual exterior design of the trailer
has evolved over the past four years. Initially, I came up with some nail
sketches and that went to another designer and he refined those
sketches and then we put it out there as sort of a test for the design.
Within a short time, a well-known transportation designer, Bryan
Thompson, from Los Angeles contacted me and saw what I was doing on
our own up here and was clearly and completely drawn with this
prospect and wanted to participate in the project. Having known of him
and his works, he is actually the stylist behind the Nissan and Airstream
collaboration called the BaseCamp. I had known about Bryan and his
reputation for some time and I jumped at the stairs to have Bryan
involved in the styling of the trailer. I was going to say that we did have to
change a lot of the proportions and a lot of the components that we had
initially planned. He actually added just a tremendous amount of
character and finesse in styling to the overall look. The one that we did
not have on our own. We're very grateful for Bryan's participation.
Stephen - Host: I think the melding of your vision and his design aesthetics in bringing the
two together are fabulous. I just want to comment right now and again,
people, you have to go immediately to the website and see this, is your
nosecone very European, very great, keeps all the thanks clean and some
storage. I love what you have done with the windshield. I think you
described it as an aircraft based installation. It's so sleek and it's almost
frameless. Tell us a little bit about just that windshield for a few minutes
here.
Robert - Guest: That's probably the signature component of our exterior design. Actually,
the origins of that style or that look came from ski goggles. You notice
there's a bit of a nose bridge in the center. In fact, that windshield is
produced by an aircraft windshield manufacturer in Southern California.
It is frameless, it's permanently affixed to the body forms. It's such a
great aerodynamic and style to the whole trailer because it sets it
completely apart from anybody else.
Stephen - Host: Absolutely. There are just beautiful elements. If people on the summit, I
think I'm gushing, I am because this is not ... Long overdue is the wrong
word. I was shocked and obviously, Robert, you're feeling a niche here,
you're seeing a gap in the marketplace coming from your history. I
applaud and I really hope the success comes in the form of orders and it

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starts to get out there. One of the things you mentioned is, this will
become a classic. I can see it's kind of a classic now. Maybe give people a
little bit further background. Tell us a little bit about the some of your
prior histories so I just get a feel for where you come from.
Robert - Guest: Sure. I can do that, Stephen. Again, my background and training is in
design. That's not only corporate design, graphic design, but also product
design. I'm a self-taught carpenter. I put myself through college working
in a garage. I have a lot of, not only hand skills with the automotive
industry and mechanical industries. Because of my education, I'm sort of
an artist as well as you might say. I put all those things together and
started this company called the Eggplant back in 2006 where I was
restoring, again, these vintage fiberglass trailers. The old fiberglass
trailers got started in the late 60's and had a big bloom in the 70's and
early 80's. There may have been 50, 60, or 70 manufacturers in North
America at the time producing fiberglass trailers. They were always built
very cheaply on the low end of the scale. People were so enamored with
their style and the look of these things and the lightweight components
of it. Again, they were put together rather poorly and cheaply.
People started bringing their trailers to me from all over; Canada,
Colorado, California, Arizona, the Western States. They were coming to
me to have me restore these trailers and they were spending a lot of
money to kind of bring them up to a level that the client feels
comfortable living in. They wanted a little higher end. They love to look at
the trailer but they wanted higher end and better quality features and
components. It is from that experience redoing and restoring and
actually, modernizing these vintage travel trailers that the idea to
produce a properly designed, high end product for sort of, what I
described as, discriminating clientele that can appreciate both good
design and the great outdoors that it gives them an opportunity to have a
real product that they can feel proud to own.
In fact, we talked about pride of ownership and we don't give our client
any reason to feel a need to create an excuse for one component or
another. We try to think of as much as they could possibly think of and
try to come up with the best quality components and fixtures to give that
travel trailer as much quality and style as we possibly could find.
Stephen - Host: I wanted to talk about components. It looks like, Robert, that obviously,
you've been in and out, upside down every nook and corner, you know
the industry well as far as restoring and that's a great backdrop to help

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you pick, literally, every single screw, nuts, fastener, wheel, air
conditioner, solar. It looks like you've really thought out not just the
design aesthetic but literally, every millimeter, every inch of these space
has been thought thoroughly through time. Tell us a little bit about some
of the components and what makes it different.
Robert - Guest: That is, indeed, the fact because we can't let any little thing go by that
doesn't meet our standards. We're not trying to build just another travel
trailer. We want to have a travel trailer that is the best that we can build.
We think that the industry is probably Airstream and our price play will
be approaching Airstream’s. It's quite a bit less than Airstream but still a
very high end trailer.
A few words about some of the details, I think number one on our list of
innovations has to be our monocoque construction. This unit body
construction that eliminates the need for a steel frame under the trailer
box. No one else in the industry is producing this. We are able because
the mold of fiberglass or building process, we're actually able to build all
the strength that we need to carry the load and the stresses of towing
right into the lower shell body of a product. That means, again, no steel
frame under the box. We have a direct axle to box attachment process. If
you climb underneath the bottom of our trailer and look underneath,
you'd see a flat plane uninterrupted by anything except for the axle. First-
Stephen - Host: I want to just pause you there, Robert. I've seen a picture and I was super
impressed because not only that weather tight ingress for water,
aerodynamics, rodents, you name it, it looks like it's extremely
well-sealed and thought about. I'm sure that's why you did that.
Robert - Guest: Exactly that. Not only that, it was for the weight. We reduced the weight.
It makes it easier to tow, again, of midsize cars. Just because you buy a
trailer, it doesn't mean you have to go out and buy a whole towing rig to
be able to pull it. We're shooting for a finished weight of around 2,000
pounds and that's significantly lower than any other product of this
comparable size out there. Not only that the mold is fiberglass, it allows
us to get the steps automotive style and it just as not available with your
thin and thick construction where you're obligated to put everything in a
straight line, everything is a square box. There's no chance for that
automotive styling that we're doing with the Nest Caravan with.
Stephen - Host: I want to stay on the component aspect. Again, I applaud you again and
things may change, people need to check with the website often. I was

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super excited when I've seen a European style heating system. I think it's
the ... I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it right, the Alde system.
Robert - Guest: That's correct. Yes.
Stephen - Host: I thought, "My goodness, are you kidding me. That's amazing." For people
that aren't familiar, why is that such a great technology and tell us people
a little bit about it.
Robert - Guest: Right. The Alde has actually been in Europe for quite a long time. It's a
Swedish product. It has just recently been introduced in the North
American market within the last couple of years now. What's really great
about the Alde system is, it's not only is it supremely sophisticated and
innovative but it does two things. Now, it provides cabin heats, hydronic
cabin heat. The heating system itself called heated glycol through
radiator systems are radiator components within the system throughout
the cabin. You have this really nice, almost a moist heating system rather
than a forced-air furnace which is so standard and typical in travel
trailers. Not only is it the cabin heating, but it also provides a source for
hot water for our sink and shower. It's all controlled by a digital
thermostat and control pad that is on the wall. It's completely self
contained. It's all neatly hidden within the cabinetry. It's probably the
most sophisticated heating system that I've seen available in North
America.
Stephen - Host: Robert, just so I'm straight on this as well, is it also like an instant hot
water heater as far as the shower goes? Was it super efficient as well?
Robert - Guest: Yeah. Like I said, it also functions as the heat source for hot water. It
provides hot water to the sink and to the shower.
Stephen - Host: Robert, there's a great picture or recent article of one of the local
newspapers and you're sitting in the front and you got a great smile. It's
almost as if, you designed the ultimate trailer for yourself. Is that another
part of it or did you get some feedback, like you said, from surveys or
crowd source? It sounds like you're really building this for yourself.
Robert - Guest: Stephen, I probably am a discriminating camper in that regard. I really
wanted to have a trailer to console with some pride and sort of match to
my car in a way. We do offer total vehicle color matching, for example,
should you want the trailer to match the color of your car, the paint of
your car. I just wanted to have a product that seemed appropriately. You

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wouldn't expect BMW or Porsche to design a trailer that looks like the
typical travel trailer that you can find on any RV parking lot anywhere in
America. We wanted something that was really sophisticated and it looks
like it was made to be pulled behind your high end vehicle.
The reason we came up with these things, yes, of course, based upon my
own experience but again, we did surveys. We didn't ask about what the
trailer should look like. We ask what people wanted the trailer to provide,
and those parameters dictated a lot of the components in spite their
physicality actually helped dictate how the geometry is inside work out.
The vision for the styling, that's all proprietary, I guess, I could say
because I felt like there wasn't anything out on the market place that did
what I thought travel trailers should do.
Stephen - Host: Your attention to detail is phenomenal. It's almost as if you divided up
your trailer into unique sections, the eating section, the work, the
washroom, and then you've sourced or chosen to partner with the
highest and/or aesthetically as well as functionally. Tell us what people
can expect as far as amenities inside of the trailer and outside.
Robert - Guest: You're making a good point of something that we were very cognizant of
when we were putting this together was the components that were
available in the RV industry really didn't meet our standards of quality or
our design. Whenever possible, we went out looking for alternatives
within the marine, the aviation, even fine home building industries to see
if there wasn't other product out there that wasn't typically thought of as
appropriate for travel trailers. As long as it met the building codes and
the requirements of our trailer, we felt that it was appropriate to be
included in the Nest.
Yes, let me point out some of the details inside, for example. Again, it's a
relatively small compact trailer that's on purpose. It's designed for,
basically, a couple, probably a baby boomer with some discretionary
income, empty Nesters, they just want to be able to take off on a whim
and enjoy themselves. We're still encouraging people to go out and
camp. That means, sitting around the campfire and enjoying nature in
that way. Nest becomes this really really lovely and cozy refuge when one
wants to turn in for the night or should the weather be inclement.
Again, we have a queen size bed, we have a deep stainless steel sink,
single lever designer faucet, that lovely burner cook top as you
mentioned, a wet bath and includes a shower wand and actually an

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award winning port-a-potty, a 50-inch counter that sits below our fixture
windows. You can look out at your campsite, cork flooring. You're right,
we will offer options and further upgrades, other details, and we plan to
try to provide these options to our customers so that they can built to
suit if you will. We can do certain things to make the trailer more
customized and as specified to the client's particular taste and whims.
Stephen - Host: Tell me about the interior ambiance. A lot of box trailers tend to be dark
and that's because of windows. I'm noticing that obviously, windows
were right up at the top of your design list. I'm seeing you're using some
beautiful crank out windows.
Robert - Guest: Yes, you're right. The small trailers tend to be very dark. In the early days,
manufacturers insisted on dark oak cabinetry and everything was sort of
claustrophobic inside. We're trying to avoid all that. We're trying to make
the interior as bright as possible. We try to add as many windows as
possible. We're using light-colored wall fabrics and your choice of white
or a natural light, natural wood cabinetry, these beautiful lighting fixtures
with dimmable switches, for example. All that stuff is very carefully
thought through just so that one could have an experience inside the
trailer that feels comfortable and welcoming and kind of a very ... The
whole point is that you should feel nice and happy to be inside and have
like, let's say, this pride of ownership that everything you see around you
is a reflection of who you are and the kind of choices you might make in
your own home.
Stephen - Host: I think you have a skylight or a couple of opening vents. Maybe, tell us
something about those.
Robert - Guest: Yeah. Again, to provide more light into the cabin, we're referring to it as
the moon roof so that one could lie in bed and be able to look up and see
the stars at night. It's a really nice aesthetic extra to the cabin. Again,
during the day, it provides a tremendous amount of light at the floor
edge of the cabin. It's really a nighttime feature. It's easy to open and it
doubles as an escape access point.
Stephen - Host: Yeah. I think it's important for people to really understand the
lightweight aspect and aerodynamics of this. This is going to be easy to
tow with, like you said, small to medium size SUVs. Why is that important
and tell us about the fun and I guess the strength aspect of not having to
have a big truck?

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Robert - Guest: I think that there are ... One could say that having a small trailer, it
becomes obvious that the smaller the trailer, the less weight, it can be
easier it is on your tow vehicle, the less gas is required to pull it. Even
though we seem to be seeing a little slip in the oil market right now, we
all know that sooner or later, gas prices are going to continue to climb. I
thought it was really important that we make the trailer as lightweight
and as aerodynamic as possible in order to make towing really quite easy.
Currently, there seems to be a slight trend to even a longer, heavier
trailer than our trailer which is only 17-feet or slightly under 17 feet.
There seems to be a move toward 20, 22-foot trailers right now which,
for us, that would be another 25 percent in weight. Again, it's our first
offering, it's designed to satisfy the needs for two people and keeping it
small that is in weight as it stands, it has quite muscular contents to it. It's
quite imposing in that regard and it's a beauty, I would say. Actually, I
would definitely go there. We'll have to see what the market does later
on.
We may introduce a longer trailer to meet other needs for people. The
thing that our trailer does not provide, there's not a lot of seating area
around a typical table, for example, if you want to just hang out in your
trailer all day. We're not encouraging that. Again, this is something you
hook up to your midsize car and head to the woods, drive a few hours,
take a break. Like all travel trailers, what's great about travel trailer is,
you can drop them at the campsite and then take your car out for a spin
and do some exploring with the car if you need to. The idea that our
trailer is so light and easy to maneuver, it just makes things so much
easier for the people that are using it. You just camp and go.
Stephen - Host: Robert, when we first touch based before this call today, I took my tape
measure out to my garage, so I have the length. I think if I remove one of
my header boards and slightly alter my garage door, I can probably fit it
in if I deflate the tires. I was very excited about that.
Robert - Guest: That might be possible. Yes.
Stephen - Host: Maybe there will be an option to lower it a couple of inches for a garage
choice. I think for a lot of people, this is another ... Especially people that
are looking at this lifestyle. There may be restrictions for the bigger RVs.
Some people will be able to fit this in their garage. As I am looking at your
floor plans, I see, the current configuration is the queen bed which I think

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is just phenomenal. You have a queen bed and a wet bath. I can't wait to
see the interior for myself. Will you be offering options for, I think you
might have a dinette convertible. Is that, again, something you're
thinking about or is that an option?
Robert - Guest: Stephen, that's definitely in the work. We will have an option that will
allow you to convert the bed to a more typical bench and table
arrangement. Again, our research was such that we decided to go see
full-time queen size bed and it seemed to be the majorities of preference.
That was our initial offering, the conversion to a table and bed will be an
option.
Stephen - Host: It looks great. It looks like a great place to just, during the day, you could
probably throw some cushions back there and have a great lounging area
and then somebody could be sitting at the desk or command center.
What are you calling on the side there, is it a little work desk? Is it a
nook?
Robert - Guest: Yeah.
Stephen - Host: How would you describe that?
Robert - Guest: We call it a dining counter. We do have two folding chairs that gets
attached in the closet to the right of the counter during transit. It makes
for a very comfortable place to sit when you're indoors and it's quite an
extensive surface. You can not only have your meals there, you can play
cards, you can check your computers. In fact, in seeking that, we are
providing built-in USB charging accessible right there at the counter as
well as near the bed. We will have integrated charging built-in. We have
three locations for 110 VAC alternative AC power, not only at the counter
top but in the storage compartment below the bed accessible from the
outside, and a third option for possible microwave should one want to
add that back to the trailer.
Stephen - Host: It looks like there are some possibilities to add additional functionality
with additional leaves, et cetera. I guess you're still tweaking and getting
feedback. Will there be extensions or additional things?
Robert - Guest: That's exactly right. That's right. We call them the wings to the counter
tops to extend those and we are actually considering some other
products that will allow us to be a little more flexible with those two work
stations. We're thinking that we might want to extend the countertop

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