While some – including former PM Scott Morrison – may find it impossible to believe, electric vehicles will one day be able to tow all manner of caravans … and that day may not be too far away!
Even those who have long scoffed at the idea of a bowserless Big Lap are now being forced to acknowledge that the case for living the dream on a charge is an increasingly overwhelming one.
One person who needs no convincing is keen caravanner, Keith Blackburn from Canberra, who has become something of a pioneer in electric vehicle van towing.
The Canberra Times reports that Keith was an early convert to EVs and took delivery of a Tesla Model 3 long range model back in 2019, the same year that Scott Morrison declared that electric vehicles would ‘ruin the weekend’.
Determined to prove the one-time PM wrong, Keith set out to show his Tesla could take him on decent length trips … and that the van could come too!
While his Model 3 was factory-rated to tow one tonne, Tesla didn’t offer a towbar so Keith tracked down a US company, Stealth Hitches, which did. The Canberra Times reports that the national Tesla owners club, which was keen to support Keith’s quest, had it uprated and compliant to tow the full 1000kg.
The next challenge was finding a caravan which fell well under the Tesla’s tow rating and provided a safety margin. Keith settled on a unique teardrop-shaped design from Canada called the Alto, which weighed in at 766kg. It boasts a lightweight sandwich-type construction with electric actuators to raise and lower the roof so that under tow it has far less wind resistance than a normal van. However, once on site, the roof can quickly be raised to a conventional height.
When not towing, Keith’s dual motor Tesla long range usually has a range of around 500km.
In order to test the capabilities of his new set-up, Keith towed his van from the South Coast of NSW, up the Clyde Mountain, and back to Canberra … all on a single battery charge.
“My calculations on the net rise and fall in the highway from the coast to home indicated that, with regenerative power to assist, the journey was achievable without a recharge,” the retired statistician to the Canberra Times. “It was always going to be touch and go, but I knew that if I got really low on battery, there were recharge stations at Braidwood and Bungendore as a back-up.”
Keith safely made the trip with an indicated range of just seven kilometres left after the 198-kilometre journey.
“The car wasn’t as fully charged as it should have been and my advice to anyone who wants to tow with an EV is to do the maths beforehand,” he told the Canberra Times. “Towing does greatly affect your driving range but by how much depends on the topography of your route.”
Wow, a 150km journey before having to recharge with a long range Tesla and a super light van. The Gray Nomads are going to be having lots of enforced rest stops on their big laps.
With a 4wd ute towing a 19.60 ft caravan we get 380km on one tank. So when your average trip is 800kms this electric car business is only around town and neighbouring suburb. Unless you have lots of efficient charge stations you would not make it around the best of West Australia. Thats why its NOT Suitable for towing nirmal distances in WA.
I’ve got a Jeep Grand Cherokee with 93 litre diesel tank and tow a 27ft van . Averages 14.5. Litre per 100ks going from Goulburn to NSW South Coast and back.
Not really a positive article (as encouraged in your Forum Rules). What is the relevance of reference to “former one time PM Scott Morrison”? And proving him wrong.
Well he did say that EVs would ruin our weekends!
And Scott Morrison has just been proven to be 100% correct.
Good luck to him but judging on these figures quoted in the article I hope he’s planning to travel anti clockwise around Australia. If he’s heading West across the Nullarbor and the Roaring Forties are blowing he could be in trouble.
Anti clock wise is shorter anyway.
We have a RAV4 AWD hybrid, not fully electric, but has a towing capacity of 1500Kg. We tow an Adria Action 361 lightweight caravan (Tare weight 1000Kg) with ease, and no worries about range (about 450Km on a full 40L tank of unleaded). The electric motors have excellent torque and are very good for braking (regenerative assist).
Ah yes, but how long before the govt hits you with road tax ? Do it while you can.
The EV tow vehicles are coming – have a look at the new crop of EV powered US “pickups”, Ford F150 “Lightening”, Rivian and the Electric Hummer. They all tow large “Trailers”, Horse Floats, and big power boats. They all have very large batteries slung between their huge chassis rails, towing capacities up to four and half tons and towing distances around 300 miles (Unloaded 500 – 600 miles). East coast trips are now easy, west coast traveling will come quickly as these (RHD converted?) vehicles hit our shores.
Large EV vehicles will become THE best towing option, especially for the fuel cost conscious traveler. Electricity will decrease in cost with more renewables in the system. It is already a very cheap fuel for travelers compared to fossil fuels which will continue to increase in cost as they gradually fade away.
Agree, we are in the very early stages of this transition. There are new experimental ev SUVs with over 1200 brake horsepower doing the rounds in Europe (ford I think). It won’t be too long based on the dev time Tesla has moved into mainstream production in the states.
h’mmm, I think that might be a stretch ‘Electricity costs will decrease with more renewables’….. not sure that has proven to be the case anywhere. Rebates hide the costs today. Coal is recognised as the low cost bulk power source today, just very unpopular with everyone. No doubt EV will get to the stage required but we should not assume electricity costs are going to come down.
Hi Sean. I added solar panels to my home and saw a large decrease in quarterly electricity costs. It’s not just about building large external infrastructure for renewables, it is the incremental decentralisation of the grid that will eventually make power less expensive overall. I would hope by the time I can get my hands on an EV truck in the future that I’ll be able to charge it at home off my own grid and even have excess to push back into the national grid. If we had pushed more focus on making it easier for people to install their own power set ups instead of cutting back on rebates and incentives for investment 20 or even 10 years ago, we would have been in better shape.
HI Glyn,
It depends on where you live, the result you see! Try Melbourne, I have had panels for more than 10 years (because there has been a focus but you are forgetting the cost to the Govt , i.e. to us taxpayers) and get a bit of a gain in summer! But try charging from them at night for instance, then add batteries (no use in Melbourne coz I would need a 10 or 15kw system in winter to get anything useful. So I am a supporter of panels mainly due to the rebates and incentives which make them somewhat economically feasible- still probably a 10 year return on investment. But that was not my point, we shouldn’t believe the spin about this being cheaper and electricity costs reducing, I would bet we are never going to see that happen, more usage will require more infrastructure, cost of disposal etc. No matter what, I suspect we are going to see higher costs as there is simply no way to sustain increased baseload power generation with renewables in the foreseeable future. This may change but we may not be still around!
Good on him . Just have to wait a bit longer for better batteries & charging station . Who cares about Morrison , he is yesterday’s man.
Why don’t we just cut out these fruitless discussions! Yes one day we will be able to tow a full size caravan and perhaps power a city with renewables but for now we are running ahead of technology.
Many of these light weight European caravans are hopeless for Australian roads, especially corrugated dirt roads, and will shake to pieces. You still haven’t shown me that EVs will ever be able to replace my Patrol Y62 4WD and be able to pull an off-road caravan.
I liked this article
The van is not much heavier than my garden trailer.
Try hooking up a 21′ 3 tonne van behind it and see how far you get.
It’s not the fact it’s electric as electric motors can produce massive torque from zero rpm, but the current crop of batteries just don’t cut the mustard for hauling heavy loads as yet.
Yes there are claims of large Ute’s in EV form that say they are capable, but they certainly are not here in this country, and many are still car designers pipe dreams.
It’s why many large truck manufacturers are looking at hydrogen fuel cells as they have the advantage of both worlds.
I do believe hydrogen is a valid option, and you are correct in saying many large truck manufactures are looking into it. The new car company Ineos Grenadier have already started research into hydrogen. EV is just too early to transition at this point just to satisfy a few climate change fanatics.