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GM Pickups Now Will Communicate Telematically With Keystone RVs They're Hauling
Maybe they may include Jayco in the future.
As recreational-vehicle sales slow from their decade-long boom, major manufacturers keep looking for more ways to extend the industry's footprint. Thor Industries has taken one of the most interesting of those steps in a deal it just hatched with General Motors that enables controlling and monitoring functions inside an RV from the GM truck that is hauling it.
Keystone, one of the huge family of RV brands controlled by Elkhart, Ind.-based Thor, announced that its iN-Command Control System with Global Connect will be available in the new lineup of 2020 Chevrolet and GMC pickup trucks, providing Keystone owners with direction of some significant functions in the trailer from their smartphone and from the dash of their Chevy Silverado or GMC Sierra.
"We have an exclusive partnership for a connected-vehicle program with two of the five GM trucks in the 2020 model year," Thor CEO Bob Martin told me. A bonus, he said, is that Keystone "will be in every [related] GM advertorial commercial this year as the exclusive RV provider."
Specifically, the system offers an additional and phone-free way to access information about tank and battery levels in the Keystone RV, battery levels, lights, water, HVAC functions, generator functions and more while on the road. The system also sends alerts should there be any RV-system errors or components that need attention. Off the road, these functions can be accessed anywhere in the world with a Wi-Fi-enabled smartphone from Chevy and GMC apps.
The Keystone system has been in development since 2015 in an effort to create the industry's first app-based control system that replaced confusing switches and buttons with one sleek, easy-to-use operation panel inside the RV. Simultaneously, Thor engineers were working with GM engineers to bring the joint effort to fruition.
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Rod and Linda
SE Wisconsin
2018 330RSTS
2015 Silverado 2500 
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