The Honda Base Station Is A Futuristic Camper That Fits In Your Garage

It sleeps four people and can be towed by compact cars.

Honda Base Station prototype

Photo by: Honda

Adrian Padeanu

By: Adrian Padeanu

Jan 14, at 9:00am ET

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THE BREAKDOWN

The Base Station has a couch that folds into a queen-sized bed.
Accessories include an external shower and kitchen.
Raising the roof provides seven feet of standing height.

Honda wants to show you don’t need a large truck or SUV to haul a camper and enjoy the great outdoors. The new Base Station is a compact trailer that can be towed by vehicles as small as the CR-V, America's best-selling SUV over the last 25 years. Once the trip is over, your home away from home is small enough to fit in a standard residential garage or parking space.

Looking like a scaled-down Lightship trailer, the camper was conceived by the same team responsible for the Motocompacto e-scooter. The R&D teams in California and Ohio cooked up the Base Station and paired its minimalist design with the Honda 0 Series SUV that pulls it. Those large side windows can be removed entirely to make room for various accessories, while the pop-up roof provides seven feet (2.1 meters) of standing height.

Access to the trailer is through a massive top-hinged tailgate, and once inside, there’s space for up to four people. A futon-like couch expands into a queen-size sleeping area, and there’s also a bunk bed for kids. Honda appears to have thought of just about everything you’d need at a campsite, including an external shower and kitchen.

Photo by: Honda

From air conditioning and running water to an induction cooktop and built-in solar panels, the Base Station ticks all the essential boxes. The onboard battery and inverter power everything, but Honda has also engineered the trailer to support external power sources. The sleek ambient lighting around the windows is configurable in color to set the right atmosphere, and once it gets dark, you can turn up the brightness to illuminate the campsite.

Honda claims the camper trailer is a natural follow-up to its adventure-oriented products, such as rugged trucks and SUVs, ATVs, motorcycles, and side-by-sides. However, it’s only a prototype at this point, so you can’t buy it, at least not yet. Should it reach production, we’re told it will be “competitively priced" in the lightweight travel trailer segment.

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Motor1's Take: It’s interesting to see a company think outside the box and develop a product you wouldn’t normally expect. Not needing a big rig to tow the Base Station makes camping more accessible, while its compact size reduces the hassle of maneuvering and parking.

A small, lightweight trailer could encourage people to head out on an adventure in a remote location with the family car rather than checking into a hotel. Whether Honda builds it remains to be seen, but the fact that it can be towed by popular SUVs like the CR-V certainly broadens its appeal.

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