Gdetrailer wrote:



Interesting,

Say at $25 per charge you mentioned and you get roughly 150 miles per charge towing that is about $.17 cents per mile.

But for the concerns of most RV'rs if you "ramped up" the size and weight of the tow vehicle and trailer trailer I suspect the mileage between charges will drop considerably and or would require a much bigger battery pack than what is currently offered to get back to 150 mile range towing.

Upgrading the size of battery pack will then add more charging time which in turn will ultimately cost you much more than $25 per charge.

To put that into perspective, my current truck averages 10 MPG towing, truck empty weight 5742 lbs per my DOT documents and 26ft trailer empty weight is 4,800 lbs. Combo I am at 10,542 lbs empty, loaded for camping around 12,000 lbs.

At average current fuel pricing of $4.00 my cost would be $.40 per mile.

Your rig by my best guess is 5,000-5,500 lbs vehicle and 1,900-2,900 lbs for the trailer. A combo of up to 8,400 lbs loaded, about 4K lbs shy of my loaded combo weight.

While it looks like you are saving money right now but what happens when you start scaling the size and weight that up? That is the real life question.

I suspect it won't be the same $25 or less per charge and you won't be getting 150 mile towing range..

I really don't mind my $.40 per mile cost, my truck tank is 35 gallon, I carry a 15 gallon tank in the truck bed and with 10 MPG that gives me up to 500 miles of towing range without the need to stop for fuel.

Sure, we have to take "nature stops" but now we no longer have to waste time finding decent setup fuel stations for our truck and trailer to get in and out of. Since we are towing a trailer with it's own toilet we can pull off anywhere, anytime we need to and not offend the general population trying get their fuel.

The 15gallon tank eliminated two time wasting fuel stops on one of our routes.. Takes about 8-10 minutes to fuel up not including waiting to get a pump spot or the other 20-30 minutes wasted in driving out of the way to reach a station. We now get to our destination over 1 hr faster by getting rid of two fuel stops.

We like many other RV'rs drive considerably longer than 4 hrs per day, I typically will drive 10hrs per day. The reasoning for this is we only have a set amount of vacation days that we can set aside for driving to and from our destination. As it is Our normal destination is split between two days each way. That is 4 days travel at 10hrs each day..

Driving only 4 hrs per day would mean we would need five days each way and spend only 4 days at our destination..

Glad it works for you.

Myself, nope, fuel stops are not the destination/highlight of our trips and they no longer rule my stops, I am not going backwards in life to bend for EV.. They will have to improve EV distance towing and much much shorter charging times for the bigger battery for myself to consider it.

Reisender wrote:



It sounds like you have the perfect tow vehicle for your needs. And that is an impressive range. Even four hours is a stretch for us. We did a 1740 kilometre great circle with our motorhome a few years back. It took us 7 weeks. LOL. . I think our longest day on the road was an hour and half. .

We all travel differently of course and I get it, some of those favorite spots are sometimes far away.

Stay safe on the road.

John.

Gdetrailer wrote:



Love the range we get with our setup.

Did forget to mention for comparisons sake EVs when charging are not subject to Sate and Federal "gas taxes" which varies from state to state. In my state that is $.80 per gallon of gas, Diesel is even higher.

So to level out the playing field by stripping off the gas tax I would now be at $.32 per mile..

The states are slowly catching up, some now are planning on slapping a surcharge to the annual registration.. In my state they have been bantering the idea of dropping the fuel tax and hitting us all over the head with additional registration AND mileage tax which in the end will result in higher costs for the motorists..

One of my biggest concerns is what happens to everyone's electric bill costs.. Traditionally most electric companies billing methods in the states were designed to encourage LESS power usage.. Use more KWhrs of energy and the rates skyrocket in surcharges which are percentage based.. I can easy see a $5 difference in my electric bill just by using a couple extra Kwhrs..

Example, Jan this yr we used 1,113 Kwhrs at $116, March bill we used 1,037 Kwhrs at $111. A $5 difference for 76 Kwhr.. The actual electric generation charge we buy at is $.05 per Kwhr and for $76 Kwhr more we should have paid only $3.80.. On edit.. I will note that our generation rate does vary a bit month to month and is not fixed, and the data I have on my spreadsheet for quick reference doesn't include that change. All of the taxes and other charges are percentage based and those are not linear..

Reisender wrote:

Hi Folks. For those that are towing with or plan on towing with a Tesla, here is a little info on charging at Superchargers that don't have a trailer spot at the end of the row or a pull thru. Still very common and pull thrus and trailer spots have only started to show up in Superchargers that have been built in the last couple years, and sometimes even on new ones like the one in our home town.

So count on using 3 spots. It looks like 4 spots here but that is because someone was parked at the end of the row and I didn't want to crowd them for the sake of a picture.

Anyway. This happens reasonably often. If the supercharger is quiet then this is acceptable. If not expect to unhook the trailer which really isn't that big of a deal. Tesla is building more and more stalls suited for small trailers but as more and more people tow with their Teslas they are going to need a lot more.

Tip. You don't have to get too close to the curb as you swing in. A couple feet is fine. The cable easily reaches that far and you can pull far enough ahead to not impinge on the 4th spot (like I am doing in this picture).

Obviously charging at the campground is still the easiest method, but we do lots of dry camping and this is still a reality sometimes. The joys of being a pioneer.

Safe travels all.

JMHO. Cheers.

JRscooby wrote:

I think if I owned the charge station I would set up a drive so you could park parallel on the other side so a trailer did not need to block. Even if parked on gravel.

spoon059 wrote:

OP, how long does it take you to go from empty to full charge? On our last trip we drove 605 miles home in one day. The beauty of diesel fuel is it only took one fill up to get home, which took a total of 15 minutes to get off the highway, fuel up, let the kids go to the bathroom, walk the dogs, make some sandwiches and get back on the highway.

Getting 150 miles per full charge would require starting full and then at least 3 stops. Driving up I95 on the east coast, you go through lots of rural areas and I can't image there are too many Tesla charging docks between larger towns.

Reisender wrote:

And in answer to your question, a typical supercharger stop for us is 15 minutes.

Safe travels.

John