Towing with an EV - what's the range like?

[RobbieH]

further out of the city ... less chargers

EV great option around home ... small commute
not great for travelling

We travel in our Model 3 all the time. From our house to Dallas is 230 miles, we make that trip quite often. We just got back from a trip to my brother's house near Galveston, 260 miles, no issues at all. Now would I tow a trailer with an EV? Not me, our trips are too long to mess with it, for me, diesel it is for the foreseeable future.

Those who are not experienced with owning and driving an EV are almost always shocked at how easy it is for us. Either of those trips, we make a stop along the way, as I would in my truck, because I'm thirsty, probably want a snack, and I need a bathroom break. We plug in, walk into the store, do our things, and walk right back out and drive away, no wait time at all. In fact it's a shorter stop than getting fuel, as I don't have to run a credit card, I don't have to stand there holding the fuel filler, etc.

Just imagine the whining about voltage drop at campgrounds if you get multiple sites plugging in their EVs to charge in addition to running A/C and all the other electrical items in a camper.

No difference between a 50a trailer and a 50a EV charger. It's limited to... 50a. You can't put something on the power post like a 50a Y connector and suddenly pull 100a from the post, the breaker will not allow it. And, even though it's a 50a outlet, the car only charges at 36-40a.

Now if they ever come out with a hybrid 3/4 ton truck, I'll be first in line.

It's coming, but unfortunately the 1/2 ton version they have coming soon is not going to be good for towing either. It's the Ram with the range extender, and they really blew it because the range extender does not put power back into the batteries as fast as the energy is consumed, especially when towing.

https://www.ramtrucks.com/electric/ram-1500-ramcharger.html

 

[jlynn721]

I recently replaced my old tow vehicle with an electric SUV and wanted to share the results of my first three trips. I thought it would be helpful to share real world range data. Trailer is a Forest River Salem Cruise Lite T177BQ FS. It's 23 feet long and the dry weight is 3265 lbs.

As expected, there is a big reduction in range. The car on its own has a range of 280 miles. Towing on the flat at 60 MPH we get a range of about 120 miles or 1.2 mi/kWh. Massive reduction! But I knew this going in, and we are lucky to live in Las Vegas with lots of great places to camp within 100 mile drive or so. Charging up at campgrounds has been very convenient too. Each of three trips we went on were quite different conditions, and in one of them we went from an altitude of 2,300 ft up to 8,500 ft! That really did drain the battery in the EV a lot, but we did get some regen on the way back down. Although the range is short, the EV has tremendous power so it's a great tow vehicle if you can accept the reduced range. I put all the details from this trip here in my blog - Towing with an EV It has photos, details of the range, distance, elevation, and efficiency achieved. Let me know here if you have any questions!

When I can’t tow with my diesel, I’ll retire from RVing.

 

[Karlmagne]

Makes sense. I know a guy who tows a small EV behind his motorhome.

That's the best idea for an EV yet IMO. To each their own though, I'm not going to find fault in anyone that wants to use an EV as their tow vehicle.

 

[Fineline]

I can’t speak for now but several years ago, before I retired, some of the EV charging companies would provide the chargers free of charge. That included Tesla but they all looked to see whether there would be enough use to make it worth their while. For instance a power company would install one, knowing they were going to charge the future customers for the service. I don’t see RV parks allowing this to go on very long. I saw a video back when ford came out with the lighting. The review liked the truck in general but it got about the same range as the OP indicated. With Ford losing somewhere around $40,000 on every EV they produce, they won’t survive without government subsidies. Of course every EV produced, including Teslas are subsidized. Don’t let that stop you from buying Teslas though! I’m an investor……… I’ll never buy one, of any kind.

 

[Denny54]

Some of the campgrounds that I’ve talked to in Michigan are saying that they discourage /prohibit charging EV’s. The one Campground in particular indicated that somebody was charging their EV and it was causing electrical problems within the park. Once they found out what was going on they stopped the person from charging.

 

[Steve McGraw]

Scott, Thanks for sharing this experience. I hope your travels are safe! I applaud your effort to minimize damage to the place we all want to enjoy as RV folks.

Thank you
Steve

 

[flyflotrtim]

Interesting, thanks for posting!

 

[acdii]

If I didn't have a 5th wheel, the perfect vehicle for me would be a Powerboost Hybrid. I daily drive my F350 to work, 120 RT every week day. What I would save in fuel costs wouldn't even come close to a payment for a Lightning to drive instead since the F350 is required for the 5th wheel. Then there is the added insurance, the higher cost for electricity which is already $200+ every month. Even if I went back to a bumper pull, the Lightning would not suffice as our trips are usually multi state per day. Powerboost however would be perfect since it uses both.

With a bad back, I cannot sit in a car for more than 20 minutes without getting sharp cramps, so pickups are my go to drive. I do have a Flex I can drive without issues, but its 11 years old and no longer made, but would make for an AWESOME EV if Ford brought it back. It's my favorite car of all time as it reminds me of the big wagons my parents had in the 70's. It's also a blast to drive with the Ecoboost. Downside is it has a tiny gas tank and gets 19 MPG. Filling it every other day gets OLD quick, so another reason I drive the F350 every day, just fill it once a week.

 

[rblack22]

I recently replaced my old tow vehicle with an electric SUV and wanted to share the results of my first three trips. I thought it would be helpful to share real world range data. Trailer is a Forest River Salem Cruise Lite T177BQ FS. It's 23 feet long and the dry weight is 3265 lbs.

As expected, there is a big reduction in range. The car on its own has a range of 280 miles. Towing on the flat at 60 MPH we get a range of about 120 miles or 1.2 mi/kWh. Massive reduction! But I knew this going in, and we are lucky to live in Las Vegas with lots of great places to camp within 100 mile drive or so. Charging up at campgrounds has been very convenient too. Each of three trips we went on were quite different conditions, and in one of them we went from an altitude of 2,300 ft up to 8,500 ft! That really did drain the battery in the EV a lot, but we did get some regen on the way back down. Although the range is short, the EV has tremendous power so it's a great tow vehicle if you can accept the reduced range. I put all the details from this trip here in my blog - Towing with an EV It has photos, details of the range, distance, elevation, and efficiency achieved. Let me know here if you have any questions!

Sadly the kilowatt hours are more expensive than gasoline or diesel

 

[RobbieH]

Sadly the kilowatt hours are more expensive than gasoline or diesel

Not by a long shot, at least in an unladen car (no trailer) and charging at home. Diesel here is $3.55 a gallon, electrons are $0.10 per kWh at home, and still currently (pun intended) free at Superchargers for quite a while longer for us, average of $0.35 per kWh for those that don't have free charging.

Since it would be unfair for me to compare my diesel Ram to our Tesla Model 3, I'll instead use a Toyota Camry LE, and gas prices. I also will calculate based on ALWAYS charging at home and not using free charging.

The cheapest gas I can find around me is $2.73 per gallon. The Toyota Camry gets 32 mpg.

Over 15,000 miles, the Toyota will use $1,279 of gas, the Model 3 will use $382 of kWh. That's a $897 difference over what around here is pretty much an average year of driving.

If I were to ONLY use Superchargers and had to pay the full rate, that would be $1,339 a year, which is still a savings. I honestly do not recommend an EV to anyone who can't charge at home.

In those 15,000 miles, the Tesla has gone in for service for nothing, the Toyota has needed routine maintenance which isn't free. At 30,000 miles you are probably looking at thinking about new tires (we got over 30,000 on ours and they would have gone longer had I remembered to rotate them and also if we hadn't gotten a screw in a sidewall), the Toyota has now been in at least a few times for routine oil changes, etc. 60,000 miles, same story, no maintenance needed on the Tesla.

Now I don't know about you, but time is money to me. Time waiting for an oil change or whatever has to be done during that maintenance. Maintenance costs real money too. And every single day we have far more than enough charge for my wife to get to work and back, in fact she typically only plugs in once a week. In a gas/diesel, you have to stop for gas. You can't believe how nice it is to never stop at a station during normal day to day driving.

For now I'm not going to compare my truck to an EV pulling a trailer, because as mentioned before, an EV is not something I would even remotely consider for towing an RV. I would not be happy stopping every 100 miles and having to wait an extended time, which is what right now is required because of the huge size of the truck battery packs. For our Tesla on a road trip, we can't go in to the store and back before we are already getting notifications that charging is nearing completion.

 

[Aussieguy]

Not by a long shot, at least in an unladen car (no trailer) and charging at home

great idea .... we all stay home

why did you even bother joining a RV forum
we kinda like to go places other than the mail box once a day


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PS I owned a 4 cylinder sports car.... for some reason never tried to tow a travel trailer with it
something was just not right with that....
but did get got good gas milage as long as I stayed away from the dragon

 

[RobbieH]

great idea .... we all stay home

why did you even bother joining a RV forum
we kinda like to go places other than the mail box once a day


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PS I owned a 4 cylinder sports car.... for some reason never tried to tow a travel trailer with it
something was just not right with that....
but did get got good gas milage as long as I stayed away from the dragon

Pretty easy, see my signature line. I've been RV'ing since I was 10 years old, and RV'ing as an adult (not trips with parents, that was ages ago) since 2013. Before that it was all tents. And I clearly mentioned that we take our EV on road trips, I even mentioned going to Dallas and Galveston. Both my parents RV also, dad has a 5th wheel and a GMC Motorhome, mom has a Coachman Class C.

But then, I don't see why you shortened my comment, it was a rebuttal against the statement that charging an EV is more expensive than gas or diesel. I also said I'd never tow with anything but my diesel for the foreseeable future. My comment had absolutely nothing to do with staying home.

We had a Mini Cooper S before the EV, so I get the 4 cyl sports car comment.