Tesla X Towing Videos

I also doubt that 75k payload. Gross maybe. Payload no. With an 80K gross on a normal truck, you are lucky to get 45k payload. A payload of 75k would leave you just 5k for the truck. Most cars weigh about 4k.

Towing up grades like “the Ike” and in 40mph crosswinds reduces the “range” on my gasohol and diesel trucks. The salesman shoulda told me.

The Tesla Camper Trailer is coming out with thirty eleventeen kWh’s in its skateboard chassis battery that plugs into the tow Tesla or your Tesla wall at home. Charges from a Supercharger, wall socket, it’s solar, or regen from the Tow Tesla. Low c of g. Optional powered wheels will be available.

wanderingaimlessly wrote:

For the electrical engineers that really want to get into the weeds on this, real question for you.
IF you had a Tesla truck and TT and ran out of power in the desert southwest. And you had a trailer with 400 watts of solar, and a 430 Amp/hr battery pack. Along with a 1500 watt inverter.
How long would it take to generate enough power to get the truck, without the trailer, 20 miles, to a real power source for recharging if you dont run anything else in the trailer?
It may be a lot better than I am guessing, but I really do wonder if there is an optimistic answer.
That there is a self sufficient method is a positive, just curious if the method would be real world useful.

You don't really have to get into the weeds or be an engineer to figure this out. Regardless of your available 110V power, Tesla Level 1 charging only provides a max roughly 3 miles of range per hour. TFL testing shows that towing uses roughly 3 times the battery energy as non-towing, so figure 1 hour charging time per hour of range. With a 400W solar panel trying to charge a battery pack powering a 1.5 KW inverter, you're going to be there a LONG time. Even with a gas generator (would probably take a 2kw generator at a bare minimum) figure 20 hours charging time and about 7 gallons of gas. (Honda EU2000i uses about 1/3 gallon per hour at full load) Not very good mpg at all! And if you were using this little generator you would have nothing left over to run anything in your RV. I'd say Tesla has a bit of work to do before they produce a viable vehicle for RV use. But in time it will happen, as sure as the internal combustion engine replaced the horse.

RoyJ wrote:

Reisender wrote:

wanderingaimlessly wrote:
For the electrical engineers that really want to get into the weeds on this, real question for you.
IF you had a Tesla truck and TT and ran out of power in the desert southwest. And you had a trailer with 400 watts of solar, and a 430 Amp/hr battery pack. Along with a 1500 watt inverter.
How long would it take to generate enough power to get the truck, without the trailer, 20 miles, to a real power source for recharging if you dont run anything else in the trailer?
It may be a lot better than I am guessing, but I really do wonder if there is an optimistic answer.
That there is a self sufficient method is a positive, just curious if the method would be real world useful.

Well, a kw will take you about 6.7 km in our cars. So 30 km is around 20 miles. So let’s say you need 5kw total. I’ll leave it to someone else from there.

I'm going to guess it takes from than 1 kwh to drive 6.7 km when TOWING.

Let's say you tow at a very conservative 90 km/h, or 56 mph. It takes 0.0744 hrs to drive that distance. Your average power output would be 1kwh/0.0744hr = 13.42 kw, or 18.01 hp.

There're very few trailers you can tow with an average of 18 hp.

Drag = Cd*A*rho*V^2/2

Assuming a small 7' wide 8' tall trailer, your frontal area is 5.17 m^2. The combined Cd of a truck and trailer would be lucky to hit 1. Rho of air is roughly 1.2. Plugging in the numbers, drag at 56 mph is:

Drag = 1973N

Power = F*V = 1973N x 25m/s = 49.33 kw, or 66hp

In conclusion, the required power is far greater than the 18hp assumed. Re-calculating with 66hp, it takes 49.33 kwh to drive 56 miles, or 1.13 kwh per mile. A 1.5kw generator + 0.4 kw solar makes 19 kwh in 10 hours, assuming PERFECT charging.

You can tow 21.47 miles after 10 hours of generator + solar. In real life, with charging inefficiency and less than 10 hrs of perfect sun, you'd be lucky to get 15 miles.

Yah. I forgot about the towing part. Our 6.7 km per kWh is on paved roads no load other than us and a chihuahua. :)

afidel wrote:


I'm hopeful that my retirement tow vehicle will be a used Class 8 electric truck. The Tesla semi is now testing at 600 miles for the full range model with a 75k pound payload (albeit jersey barriers so way less drag than a 5er) link

At this point, I would not trust what Tesla range when towing. Especially when it is something with a drag coefficient of a brick like a 5th wheel. So I will take the 600 miles with a grain of salt.

Reisender wrote:

wanderingaimlessly wrote:
For the electrical engineers that really want to get into the weeds on this, real question for you.
IF you had a Tesla truck and TT and ran out of power in the desert southwest. And you had a trailer with 400 watts of solar, and a 430 Amp/hr battery pack. Along with a 1500 watt inverter.
How long would it take to generate enough power to get the truck, without the trailer, 20 miles, to a real power source for recharging if you dont run anything else in the trailer?
It may be a lot better than I am guessing, but I really do wonder if there is an optimistic answer.
That there is a self sufficient method is a positive, just curious if the method would be real world useful.

Well, a kw will take you about 6.7 km in our cars. So 30 km is around 20 miles. So let’s say you need 5kw total. I’ll leave it to someone else from there.

I'm going to guess it takes from than 1 kwh to drive 6.7 km when TOWING.

Let's say you tow at a very conservative 90 km/h, or 56 mph. It takes 0.0744 hrs to drive that distance. Your average power output would be 1kwh/0.0744hr = 13.42 kw, or 18.01 hp.

There're very few trailers you can tow with an average of 18 hp.

Drag = Cd*A*rho*V^2/2

Assuming a small 7' wide 8' tall trailer, your frontal area is 5.17 m^2. The combined Cd of a truck and trailer would be lucky to hit 1. Rho of air is roughly 1.2. Plugging in the numbers, drag at 56 mph is:

Drag = 1973N

Power = F*V = 1973N x 25m/s = 49.33 kw, or 66hp

In conclusion, the required power is far greater than the 18hp assumed. Re-calculating with 66hp, it takes 49.33 kwh to drive 56 miles, or 1.13 kwh per mile. A 1.5kw generator + 0.4 kw solar makes 19 kwh in 10 hours, assuming PERFECT charging.

You can tow 21.47 miles after 10 hours of generator + solar. In real life, with charging inefficiency and less than 10 hrs of perfect sun, you'd be lucky to get 15 miles.

ShinerBock wrote:

wilber1 wrote:


It would only be able to make a prediction after you started towing and it knew the actual energy consumption. To make any kind of prediction in advance it would have to know the weight of the trailer and its drag coefficient. Yes, you would get an idea from experience.

This is why I still say EV's have a very long way to go before they become the dominant choice for tow vehicles. It is not as simple as most think, and these obstacles need to be addressed. Some can say that they can just add a larger battery in the trucks, but that will also add weight(and costs). Trucks today are already maxed out in there government regulation classes as it is and making them heavier would lower their rated capabilities even more. You would likely end up having an EV truck with a GVWR in Class 3 one ton, but with the capabilities of or less than a Class 2A half ton.

I'm hopeful that my retirement tow vehicle will be a used Class 8 electric truck. The Tesla semi is now testing at 600 miles for the full range model with a 75k pound payload (albeit jersey barriers so way less drag than a 5er) link

wilber1 wrote:


It would only be able to make a prediction after you started towing and it knew the actual energy consumption. To make any kind of prediction in advance it would have to know the weight of the trailer and its drag coefficient. Yes, you would get an idea from experience.

This is why I still say EV's have a very long way to go before they become the dominant choice for tow vehicles. It is not as simple as most think, and these obstacles need to be addressed. Some can say that they can just add a larger battery in the trucks, but that will also add weight(and costs). Trucks today are already maxed out in there government regulation classes as it is and making them heavier would lower their rated capabilities even more. You would likely end up having an EV truck with a GVWR in Class 3 one ton, but with the capabilities of or less than a Class 2A half ton.

time2roll wrote:

wilber1 wrote:
Does it know if you are going to make it towing a 4000 lb barn door? What I got from those videos is that it doesn’t. I think those videos made a good case for a plug in hybrid with a good size battery, so you can take advantage of the electric motor torque on grades but not worry about being stranded.

Supposed to learn based on your driving style but this would need a software update to get a more accurate estimate at the start. User would quickly learn to divide by 2 or 3 depending on conditions.

About the same as a petrol truck where the DTE says 450 miles and you hook up a trailer and know very well you only get 225 miles range.

It would only be able to make a prediction after you started towing and it knew the actual energy consumption. To make any kind of prediction in advance it would have to know the weight of the trailer and its drag coefficient. Yes, you would get an idea from experience.

Generating 2 kWh per day and 3 miles per kWh you would get maybe 6 miles per day.
With losses and general conditions I would say five days. YMMV