It is but it isn’t at the same time, it’s definitely not an insurmountable issue either. A few minor tweaks to the infrastructure would make it easier.
That would be me, I just got back from Wales for a week, 220 miles each way towing with my Model Y.
It’s not as rare as you might think, at the site I was on there was a guy with a Model X. When I was on my way back, an XC40 recharge was charging at Rugby services and they parked their caravan next to mine. There is a growing group on boomerbook of people sharing experiences.
The furthest I’ve gone is 330 miles to Devon just before the school holidays, no problem.
Range is an issue but it also isn’t. Most caravaners travel less than 100 miles for most of their trips.
The availability of chargers isn’t really an issue, there are plenty of them around en-route. I think we’ve done 7 trips this year, I’ve needed to charge en route on 3 of them and it was never an issue.
My Model Y gets a range of of 140 miles with a standard 7ft6 caravan on the back, the length and weight doesn’t really make much difference. I can eek that out to 150 by managing my speed a bit and sticking with the trucks. I tend to drive at max speed (60) and overtake as much as I can now I’ve got more confidence with it.
I’d love to have more range, but actually I don’t think I actually need that much more range. 140 miles is over 3 hours driving in the real world (when towing) and by that point I’m beyond ready for a break, it takes a hell of a lot more concentration than normal driving thanks to the standard on the roads these days.
It would be much more convenient if the car had 170-180 real world miles while towing. It would mean you can better utilise the optimal charging curve on the car to reduce charging times (e.g. I don’t need to go to such a high SOC). Beyond that, I think you’d start hitting diminishing returns very quickly.
Combine a bit more range with towing friendly stalls and slightly faster recharging and I think we will pretty much be there for the vast majority of caravaners. The Q6 etron looks like it will tick 2 of 3 of those boxes on paper so it’s not like the cars are not coming.
I think the below summaries EV towing currently…
The good:
You can charge your car from the caravan’s electric hook up - plenty of sites have sensible policies and pricing. The day to day is incredibly convenient.
They are incredibly good at towing, lots of torque and very stable thanks to the low centre of gravity.
The bad:
Some MSAs are simply not set up for tow cars needing to charge at the moment. The caravan parking can be in an area that you can’t get back to without going the wrong way down a one way road. The solution is to take your caravan into the car parking area, I’ve not encountered a problem but I’m sure some lovely human will try to make it one at some point, people gonna people at the end of the day.
There are a handful of trailer friendly rapid charging stalls in the entire country so you do need to unhitch, I’ve got it down to a couple of minutes but it could be better.
Car selection is poor unless you have deep pockets. You are looking at cars with a £50k list price to get 1600kg towing capacity, if you need 2000kg capacity, you are looking at a list price of £80k+ (until the Q6 etron launches). Even then, not all are viable, an ID.4 and its clones can only tow 1200kg - useless. Compare to ICE there is a plethora of cheaper ICE cars that will tow 2000kg.
Range needs to be a bit better, but as above, not that much better in reality. Ease of recharging needs to be improved.
sportline or VRS they look good. ID7 have a great deals at the moment, then you are in daft list price territory like the I5,A6 Etron. Kia EV9 is a great looking thing imo, not the most efficient, but bags of space.
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