Lightship, a startup that makes futuristic-looking electric recreational vehicles, is more than doubling its manufacturing space in Broomfield and expects to more than quadruple its production capacity.

Lightship, founded in 2020, started commercial production of its all-electric travel trailer in 2025. The company is expanding its manufacturing facility from 32,000 square feet to about 76,000 square feet.

“There’s another 45,000 square feet on the other side of that wall. We’re about to break down this wall,” said Toby Kraus, CEO and co-founder on a recent tour of Lightship’s production area in Broomfield’s Baseline Innovation District.

The company wants to produce roughly 80 of its travel trailers this year. Kraus said the bigger manufacturing space should boost the total to about 500 a year.

The expansion could be complete by mid-summer.

Kraus and co-founder Ben Parker, the chief product officer, both worked for Tesla and other EV companies before starting Lightship. Parker is based in San Francisco, where the company does research and development, but was in Broomfield in March, showing customers around the production area.

“You can probably sense the energy in the room right now. There’s a lot going on,” Parker said, motioning to the various assembly stations. “We’re trying to play the duck in the sense that we are calm above the surface of the water and our feet are just pedaling at the speed of light under the water.”

Lightship netted $26.6 million in a recent round of fundraising. There are plans to increase the Colorado workforce, now at roughly 100.

A handful of other companies are producing electric RVs, but Kraus stressed that Lightship’s vehicles are hand-built with approximately 80% of the parts made in the U.S.

“From the beginning, we thought it was very important to set up our supply chain here,” Kraus said.

Lightship believes using mostly U.S.-made components is the right thing to do and strategically smart to guard against the uncertainties of global trade.

“And most importantly because we believe our customers care. It’s Americana,” Kraus said of RV-ing.

“Because we are a direct-to-consumer brand that builds and sources in the U.S., we can quickly incorporate real-world feedback like that and turn those learnings into product improvements on a much shorter cycle,” Parker said in a statement.

A 2025 report by the RV Industry Association said 8.1 million American households own RVs, or 6.7% of households that own vehicles. An additional 16.9 million households are interested in owning an RV in the next five years, according to the report.

Lightship wants to give people exploring the country by RV a choice of going electric. Lightship’s AE.1 is a sleek, aerodynamic trailer with a canopy, or top, that lowers for what the company calls “road mode.” In “camp mode,” the roof raises, making room to sleep up to five people and the use of all-electric appliances.

The camper has panoramic tinted windows that come with black-out curtains.

The trailer is equipped with a battery with 77 kilowatt hours of energy, which would be “a massive system for a house,” Kraus said.

Solar panels on the top have a total capacity of 1.8 kilowatt hours. “That’s like a small-home solar system,” Kraus said.

A system the company calls TrekDrive uses the battery and a motor on the rear axle to propel the trailer and significantly reduce the load on the towing vehicle. The system turns on at 15 mph.

“This is probably the most important piece of technology that we’ve developed,” Kraus said.

Towing a trailer normally substantially cuts the miles per gallon of a gas-powered vehicle or the range of an electric vehicle. “TrekDrive is making that trailer close to weightless, getting you back to your whole range, if you’re an electric vehicle, or your full fuel cargo for a gas-fueled vehicle,” Kraus said.

Lightship estimates towing vehicles will see just a 3% decline in their range or miles per gallon when using TrekDrive.

The trailers weigh from 7,500 to about 8,200 pounds. The trailer is 26.7 feet long and 8.5 feet wide. It stands 6.11 feet tall with the top down and 10.1 feet tall with the top up. The trailers have a built-in Starlink connection port for access to high-speed internet.

Lightship has two models: one sells for $184,000 and a streamlined configuration of the AE.1 starts at $157,500.

Kraus is optimistic about Lightship’s future even though the rollback of federal incentives has cooled the outlook for the electric vehicle market.

“I also am eyes-wide-open that we sell something that’s pretty expensive, too,” he said.

Over time and more generations of the vehicle, Kraus expects the price to drop. “We’re not trying to build a niche product.”

However, he concedes that Lightship likely won’t be considered a mass-market product.

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.