I’m not hearing a downside…
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There’s even one (and only one) in the US, the Auto Train between Lorton, Virginia, near DC, and Sanford, Florida in the Orlando area.
Also, in some locomotive cab footage from Austria, I’ve seen roll-on/roll-off trains that carry semi-trucks across the country if not further. The truckers ride along in a passenger car that’s part of the train.
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That would be even cooler if you could modify the engine to run on bio-diesel…
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Some may recall an old Dr Atomic UG comix bit wherein the Doc builds an eco-van with caged chickens in back feeding a fast methane generator to fuel the non-polluting engine. All goes well till Billy Kropotkin spills a bag of whites (amphetamine tablets) into the chicken feed. The birds out-do themselves and Doc A gets a speeding ticket.
Meanwhile, the future of RVs is elsewhere, but their past is all around us. We probably haven’t seen the last of ICE (internal combustion engine) RV platforms, nor the last non-autonomous ones, but the end is near. I foresee mandatory installation of auto-driving packages in ALL road-legal vehicles, and the grandfathering of ICE relics. Steam for transport likely won’t make a comeback – too bad, because of many pros of advanced steam technology. (Most world power is steam generated.) Nope. Soon they’ll all be electric and robotic.
That’s okay. Your rented e-RV auto-spins to your reserved campsite. Your robo-slave hooks you up (power, water, sewer, TV cable), opens the awning, sets out lounge chairs and drinks, erects tents for the kids, chases off raccoons and squirrels, and microwaves the frozen lasagne. Life is good. Of course you were stoned on the drive over. Isn’t everyone.
Bio-diesel will be suppressed, underground, for outlaws only.
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For most RV Use cases, they should be the last vehicles electrified.
If you look for used RVs, the thing that strikes you is how few miles that they have on them. A 30-40 year old RV will normally have less than 75K miles on it, for 4 decades of use.
Most RVs sit unused or in stationary occupation for all but a handful of days a year, when they are called upon to travel long distances. While that 8mpg RV looks like a more tempting target than the 32 mpg commuter car, it travels a short distance almost every day, and travels a lot more miles each year than the RV does.
Then you have the problem of recharging the batteries when you run out. If you are using the RV to travel from RV Park to RV Park, and the RV Parks are less than your battery distance away from each other, then you are good. If you are using the RV to go camping in a non-developed dispersed camping spot without infrastructure (“boon docking”), then this doesn’t work well, particularly if the vehicle drains that battery with your fridge, lighting, and cooking needs.
TBH, I am really looking forward to self-driving RVs. Not only would owning one rule (Sleeper car! Program it to get you to where you are going, go back and sleep, arrive in the morning fresh and ready for the day!) but it would also be cool since you wouldn’t have to dodge RVs driven by elderly people who shouldn’t be driving anything larger than a golf cart. (Sadly, I figure by the time that they have self-driving RVs, I’ll be one of those elderly people who shouldn’t be driving anything larger than a golf cart, so WIN WIN WIN. 
)
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