Coachmen Teleos: Is this Forest River's answer to Airstream and Brinkley RV?

TL;DR: The just-announced Coachmen Teleos might just signal a return to focus on quality instead of a race to the bottom on price.

Let's be honest, the RV makers haven't been known for their product quality lately

The first RV I ever purchased as an adult in 2017 had its hot and cold water lines swapped. The washing machine hookups in my second RV had pipes that never got screwed together (or became separated between its assembly point and the dealership where I bought it). I've had backsplashes and facades peel off in the same manner, cheap tires blow out (affectionately known as "China bombs"), hydraulics stop working at random, and fiberglass crack on a four-month old fifth wheel – and don't even get me started on what happens when RV makers try to add digital technology into their products.

When I traded in a one-year old toy hauler, the dealer found 30+ defects they had to repair before they could list it on their lot.

If you've owned an RV, none of this is news to you. In fact you've probably got your own war stories.

So when I see a big manufacturer using terms like "premium" or "luxury", you can understand why my BS alarm might sound.

But... Forest River just launched something that might counteract the trend: the Coachmen Teleos – a new travel trailer line from the Forest River family that might indicate one of the biggest RV manufacturers is rethinking how they build some of their products.

Quality wasn't always optional

For the past couple decades it seems like the high volume manufacturers like Thor, Forest River, Winnebago, and Jayco were racing each other on price, features, and production volume – and build quality took a hit as a result.

Grand Design was an early example of a company to take the opposite approach back in 2012 when three industry veterans started the company on the simple principle of doing the right thing. It was enough of a differentiator back then that Winnebago paid $500 million for them four years later.

And that's largely been the bet by newer RV manufacturers that have followed after Grand Design – that there's enough of a market of RV shoppers at a higher price point to get a product that will survive its first camping trip (and then some) without any issues with fewer issues.

Don't get me wrong – this isn't to knock the big RV makers. The past couple decades have been tumultuous for the industry. We've seen an explosion in the ability to work remotely, the influence of social media on a longstanding industry that had to learn to adapt to it, and then of course a global event in 2020 that changed a good portion of our society. RV makers have had to adapt and make do with limited supplies and excess demand. And with consolidation in parts suppliers, it's never been easier for a new RV company to enter the market.

Brinkley's travel trailers use real wood trim and dovetail drawers instead of stapled particleboard. Oliver Travel Trailers builds a double-hull fiberglass shell, the same idea boats use, so there's no wood to rot or delaminate. Products from inTech RV offer a welded, all-aluminum cage frame instead of building on wood studs.

And then there's Lightship, founded by a handful of Tesla alumni, whose AE.1 electric trailer is an entirely different take on what RV camping could look like. Of course it's worth noting that Lightship comes in at a significantly higher price point, but underlying instinct: engineer this thing properly instead of assembling it as cheaply as possible and hoping sales numbers outpace the cost of warranty repairs.

So when the Coachmen Teleos made headlines, as reported by RV Business, it made me wonder if "the big guys" have had enough of their lunch eaten that they're finally going to do something about it.

Enter the Coachmen Teleos

The Teleos is a vastly different construction approach top to bottom than we typically see from Forest River. The walls, roof, and floor are all-composite with 3-pound foam polyfiber, and there are no slideouts at all, which keeps the insulation envelope intact instead of punching seams and seals through it. (Seams and seals are exactly where most water intrusion starts.) The plumbing is expandable woven line instead of PEX, so it can freeze without cracking, which would've solved exactly zero of my reversed-line problems but might've saved me a very different headache one January or made me less stressed about freezing temperatures when I wasn't prepared for it.

Forest River claims the specs of its internal components to be of higher quality, though you never know what you're going to get from third-party suppliers of parts like HVAC, kitchen appliances, and battery systems.

For now I'll be optimistic and take Forest River's word for it, as only industry insiders have actually seen the prototypes so far. The public debut of the Teleos line is slated for September at the 2026 Hershey RV Show in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and production isn't set to start until later this year.

So is this Forest River's answer to Brinkley or even Airstream?

I've got to imagine the quality-oriented RV manufacturers and startups have had at least some impact on the market share previously owned by the major RV companies.

Premium lines (both in terms of product quality but also price) like Airstream have always existed, but the plethora of new competition from the likes of Brinkley, Alliance, the new Chinook, Wingamm, and now Axiom might just have something to do with it. (Of course it's worth qualifying this generalization by mentioning the companies above don't all operate in the same market segment or even product line.)

But the development of the Coachmen Teleos line didn't happen in a vacuum either. Somebody inside Forest River had to both believe quality was worth building around, and had the internal backing to actually greenlight a line with no slideouts and a completely different construction method than everything else Coachmen makes.

In the modern RV era, until Grand Design came along, the premium travel trailer market was relatively sparse. So maybe in a way, companies like Grand Design and Brinkley helped to validate the market. Or maybe product quality of the traditional lines has stooped so low that even Forest River themselves waved the white flag and admitted they needed to do something different.

Either way, I'm excited to see a new product come out of Eklhart that isn't just another fiberglass shell, stapled and glued together, then painted white and slapped with some swooshing decals.

If the Teleos delivers on what's on paper, it's a real signal that the big manufacturers are capable of building at this level. It's good for RV shoppers either way.

We'll have more information on the Teleos – and each of the floor plan – as they become available. Subscribe to our (very occasional) newsletter if you want to stay in the loop.