Electric Tow Vehicles - Getting close
Used to be a guy on the forum towing a tear drop with a tesla but really not suitable for the vast majority of RVers. We had a young family camp next to us this weekend and something didn't look rig...
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did he say what his empty rang was? I have a few friends with lightning's and they said if they are loaded up to the max towing capacity they go from just under 500km of towing range to about 200 so it is a huge hit on the batteries when towing.
plus for a lot of people that is still not practical unless you camping in fully serviced sites and have reservations. so now the guy with the electric truck and his tiny trailer or tent trailer is taking up a 50 foot pull through spot 🤣for anyone who camps off the grid that is still useless unless your just going down the street, and for me I quite often drive over 200 miles (closer to 300) just to go for 3 or 4 nights in the middle of nowhere. I would never get home again haha
I don't try to compare the electric trucks to anything but a 1/2 tone as that's all they really are, except the cyber truck, it identifies as a trash bin, and for the price difference between the gmc or the ford and the regular gas model, that's a lot of savings and not having to worry about including charge points in your travel plans is priceless. now full disclosure I almost bought a ev for commuting to work and back but the final discission was the price point. up here it would have been twice the price of the car just to save 1500/year in fuel, oil and tuneups
Officially, it's rated at 460 miles with the bigger battery pack, so 230miles towing sounds plausible.
Not saying it's practical for everyone but honestly, most people don't boondock at all, so that cuts maybe 5-10% of the market. Compared to a few years back when it was limited to tear drops who don't cover many miles per day, this would accommodate a fairly sizable percentage of RVers.
Actually, if you can find a fast charger within say 50miles of where you boondock, it could be an improvement. The truck has an outlet/inverter that could handle the aircon. Charge up, 50 miles to the site, use 50miles worth of battery to run the aircon for the weekend and 50 miles back to the charge station with a 25% margin of error.
I agree cost is still a big stumbling block but just 2-4 yrs ago, even if you were willing to pay the cost, it was practical for maybe 5% of the market. I would guess it's up to 30-40% of the market that would have negligible impacts to how they travel.
the only real big issue I saw last year, is campgrounds up here were not allowing a ev to plug into the power at the site, or they were charging them a tone extra if they did. now that's just wat I saw the few times I did go to a campground and what was passed on to me by friends. the one place a group was made to pack up and leave because they had their tesla plugged in, I guess the manager told them they couldn't and they did anyways
Of course, you should offer to pay for the electricity. If it's hot, you might burn thru 25kwh running the aircon. A big truck on empty, could suck up 100-150kwh. At $0.25/kwh, that's $25-40 in electricity.
