A good and practical, real world test. All that was missing was some really good hills like those in the Welsh mountains, Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and the Scottish highlands.
And don't forget all those road works where you sit for hours, with your headlights on , radio , listening to traffic advice , sat-nav trying to find the nearest available charging point etc etc. I expect you will soon be hearing about all those people who have needed rescuing from the middle of towns, moors, and the bottom of hills. DIESEL FOR EVER Stu
This possible apparent ‘random’ is oh so VERY relevant, as where do people tend to take their caravans? To the fens of Lincolnshire or Wales? A VERY well-made point
The other problem is that when you have a claimed 50-60 miles of range left ( often false ) I guarantee you will start to get massive range anxiety and start to stress about finding a charger that hopefully works.
A great real world test, I tow a 24 foot 3.2 ton semi off road caravan in Western Australia with a Toyota 200 series V8 diesel 4WD. With the mainly long distances between towns here it would take me weeks to some of the distances I cover in a day with my Toyota. I would spend more time charging the vehicle than my time driving.🤣🤣
Imagine the family jumping in and experiencing the trip from Perth to Mitchell Falls and through to Kununurra, then back home. The extended stays at communities along the way would be an amazing interaction with the huge amount of gensets required for the 3 month tourism season. Everyone would be petrified of knowing by Geraldton that their right of passage was over, and they couldn't finish the trip. Maybe people will wake soon to the total impracticality of it all and understand where the present government is heading with this palaver they are dishing out to us.
Maybe someone should explain this crap to Bowen because he is pushing us like a freight train in this direction. Look EV's are great for inner city suburbs or just running around to the shops, work, schools etc but Australia is a bloody big place and EV's are just not practical for many of us that travel big distances, especially with trailers.
I love these UK videos because you guys alway tackle the questions other content creators avoid. That was a $200,000 suv / trailer combo. The insurance cost terrifies me. Well done, but it would not be My choice for a relaxing vacation.
I couldn’t think of a situation where I would be happy losing 1/3 of my range the day of a journey just because it was cold outside. My full tank on the freeway will take me ~600km regardless of the outside temperature.
@@silvy7394people do not buy cars only to suit the shortest distance they drive. People buy vehicles to cover all their driving requirements, it makes no sense to do anything else ?
@@stevezodiac491 yeah that is the reality of it, but what would probably be the most rational thing to do is to have a car that can do all the things you do regularly with an ease, but only needs to be capable of doing really occasional stuff, but it does not by any means need to be the best / excel at it. All but the shortest range new ev-s have a range big enough to cover all but road trips for most people. And for road trips it is not like you can't do it, it just takes more time than a gas / diesel car
@@silvy7394yeah, but no where near as much as a battery powered car, an diesel engine will loose range! A diesel would loose from 760 km in summer to about to about 670-690 km in winter per 50 litre of diesel..how much will an ELV will decrease it's autonomy in winter?
@@LevyHappyClapper Our Kia diesel, towing a 1400kg caravan does around 300 miles towing, maybe 550 not towing, so a similar drop. We are swapping to a Tesla Model Y and a 1500kg caravan. I Can't wait, as it will be a far better car for every other day that we are not towing and more spacious.
@@IslaSprollie Right? It's not like ICE vehicles don't have the same problem. It costs a certain amount of extra energy to tow a caravan, so an ICE vehicle will show a similar drop in range. I'm not surprised that you went from 550 to 300.
@@zakzwijn8410you're right, the drop in efficiency is tangible on both parts, but currently ice cars still have more range, the drop in distance, percentage wise, isn't much different, but an ice car is still better for very long distances. However, in probably the not too distant future, ev batteries will improve, there's already new tech out there now improving battery stability that could mean higher or better power storage, increasing range and efficient temperature efficiency. Easy ethos for this: technology changes all the time, but opinions stay the same until it happens. Peoples knowledge is different: knowledge can think further than modern technology if you think outside the box. Opinions won't change until they do.
The anxiety level I experienced from just watching your video was unbelievable. I thought the anxiety level I normally experience from being married to two different women in two different cities was bad but after watching your video I don’t think I’ll be buying an EV anytime soon….
@@no1mongrel Actually I’m Catholic… In my church I would be referred to as a “Fallen Angel”… There was once a TV series called “On The Road With Charle’s Kuralt” back in the 1980tys… Only after he died it was discovered that he had two families, one living in Wyoming and one living in New York city… Each to his own
The main issue with EVs is that they take ages to charge, the chargers are often broken and they are sited so as to make charging a towing vehicle impractical. In effect, this thing had a range of 100 miles before the search started for a charge point and at least a 30 minute charge time, longer if you want a full charge. Batteries discharge exponentially. When full, the first 20% of capacity give you a big chunk of range. Thereafter, the power level drops faster and faster. The 30 minute 80% charge claim looks great on paper, but the reality is that the real range is probably nearer 60%. This would mean a 30 minute stop every 2 hours maximum. That route was pretty flat. The range would have been even worse in hilly country on single carriageways and charging points presumably even rarer. If the battery does die, you are well and truly stuffed. You cannot buy 5 litres of electricity and pour it in. The car has to be recovered, at great cost, charged and brought back to collect the caravan which might well have incurred additional costs. For pottering around town, EVs are fine. As a replacement for petrol or diesel, they are a pipe dream if any serious load carrying, towing or long range driving is required.
Unfortunately as per usual people don't respect what other people require and jus see things through their own perspective (I'm alright jack). Yet if you have had to rely on public charging completely I'm sure a lot of these EV drivers would not have bothered.
At the service station and removing the caravan, finding a charger that fits, waiting for it to be available, then charging it, reattaching the caravan and heading for the exit you notice the available fill up positions at the fuel pumps which had the car been diesel/petrol would have allowed a 5 min topup.
The power curve of lithium batteries doesn’t follow your method - you’re referencing ni-cd/ni-mh chemistry batteries. You can use them linearly from 100-20%, after that there can be variables at play. I otherwise agree with your post.
As a caravaner I have been giving this issue some thought on what is the way forward for myself. My wife and I thoroughly enjoy using the caravan. Our holiday in 2022 involved a 1200 mile round trip from Aberdeen to Salisbury with a few stops in between. How could we do that with an EV. You would need 2 months. The only saving grace for us is that I will be 62 this year and therefore if I buy a new diesel (Currently XC60) in 2029 I will be 68 and hopefully the new car will be operational long enough to take me to the time when I should'nt be towing a caravan. The quandry is when to buy the new car as the prices are bound to soar the nearer to the 2030 deadline and also what is going to happen to the price of fuel. Aligned to this is the problem of which manufacturers will be producing diesel or petrol cars in 2029. I doubt that Volvo will be. Without major changes or new thoughts, the touring caravan holidays may become something destined to the history books.
Your going to be an ideal candidate for one of the bigger plug-in hybrids, I guess. You can do local trips electrically charging at home and then use the petrol for the longer journeys. It also means you don't have to learn all the charging protocols.. I'm the same age as you, I've just moved to an electric car, and, whatever the fanbois say, it really can be quite tricky. I've installed about 15 apps on my phone specific to charging. In fact, I had to replace the phone along the way.
@@ecoworrier - you omitted the ridiculous cost of buying an EV in the first place (currently cost prohibitive to most), and then theres the extortionate cost of electric charging (and that's assuming it charges fast enough/kwH and isn't unserviceable or someone has decided to long term loan the copper cabling within). EV and caravan ownership is very far from smelling of roses. Shall we mention how long you need to run an EV before it becomes carbon neutral, or the unrecyclable battery pack or the slave labour in the DRC digging out the cobalt etc. Look at Geoff buy's cars' video on the topic.
@@dazzle52k52 Yes the charging infrastructure in the UK needs improving, which it is doing, just slowly at the moment. And yes, EVs are expensive, but then so are big diesel SUVs. With regards to how long you have to run an EV before it becomes carbon neutral, it's just a few years (I believe I've heard 3 and 7, so it may depend on the report and how they tallied things up - they don't always factor in the carbon used in transporting, processing/refining, and transporting the gas you burn!). And many car battery manufacturers don't buy from the DRC for exactly this reason. Something else to keep in mind wrt to the range in this video, cold weather does lower the battery's range, so there'd be an improvement if he did this in the summer. Driving 70 mph also really impacts the range. Sticking to 50 mph apparently helps a great deal (he does stick to 60 mph in the video, so this is mostly a general comment).
@@crowfoot1199 sorry but EVs look less and less practical as time moves on, not more. If he was alone he couldn't even go to the toilet, let alone charge his car.... ridiculous. I towed a four berth using my mates old Renault Traffic from Oxford to Bristol to St Austell and hardly knew it was on the back. EVs are the wrong technology, too much infrastructure needed, too expensive and no cleaner than ICE. Now with hybrids I can see a case, but even they'll have to be cheaper and cleaner to manufacture.
You were also in the flat-lands of the south of England. What will happen in the hilly-lands of the scenic north of Scotland. I also wanted to see you reverse park the caravan back to where you picked it up.! It was a good test, but as you said it wasn't too surprising. Keep up the good work.
Caravans are going to get real cheap if we let the dictatorship we call a government force us down the impractical and downright dangerous path of EVs. This is just scam, their real goal is either to kill or to lock us all into a 15 minute neighbourhood where you will stay eating only bugs, until they determine it your turn to go below ground.
Enjoyed the video. Here in Oz the average touring caravan is 2.5 to 3+ ton, EVs are just not a practical tow vehicle (yet?).The average distances in Australia are also problematic along with the lack of charging stations once you are out of the cities. If you travel a well serviced route, say Sydney to Melbourne you will have to unhitch to charge every time.
Ditto, Peter. I'm also a Wizard in Oz and have a 2.7 tonne (ATM) caravan. It's a fully off-road unit, and I need that for where we will take it. The idea of having an EV to tow a caravan is ludicrous in this country. With that sort of range (let's say 240kms if I add on the predicted "50 miles" left) it would get me from Brisbane to just passed Dalby (if I go west), and there is a steep range to traverse on that path as well. To do the distances we do in Oz...it really is a wing, a prayer and RANGE ANXIETY at 200%. Brisbane - Rockhampton is 644kms; to Townsville is 1360kms; to Cairns is 1700kms. And that's up the east coast where the ought to be charging stations. Fortunately, my Toyota Fortuner gives me about 15 litres per 100kms towing, so that is no sweat when I have a diesel range of 500kms with one ten-minute refill at the servo...and a coffee and a pie and a visit to the bathroom. When it comes to EVs in the Land DownUnder: to quote the famous Aussie movie, "The Castle"..."Tell him he's dreaming!"
Ditto, ditto. Another Aussie here. We're on the road full time atm, and loving it. We couldn't even consider doing the same with an electric car based on these results. Our 2.5 tonne van would flatten the battery in no time at all. And recharging would be impractical in many ways. If they legislated all cars to be electric, caravans would essentially be forced off the roads.
Yet another Aussie with my dollars worth. I'd have to agree that even with a lighter camper or not towing at all you would be very limited in where you can go outside the urban areas due to lack of charging infrastructure and that's not likely to change any time soon, mainly because of the lack of infrastructure to supply the required electricity at roadhouses or small town that are not on the major grids. The offset is that Australia is so urbanised and so many journeys are within urban areas that electric vehicles are highly practical and here in Perth there are a lot. We like to travel and have two cars so the optimal solution for us is a medium 4wd (tow rating is 3.1 tonnes but our camper is 1.5 all up) and an electric for the town trips. Shame we don't have the money for a new electric. There is no financial incentive to help us out so we are compromising and looking at a hybrid and keeping the 4wd for the remote trips. And before anyone complains about 'gas guzzler' the 4wd gives us 8km per litre not towing, and 11 to 12 towing. That's not bad for a car that weighs in at over 2 tonnes.
@@johnsaunders8315 100% as another Aussie in agreement here You can have your EV's and drive around the ACT with all the politicians pushing this BS up their RS
ausie. s.a., why,, for fk sake, why,,would you even consider an ev.. you obviously have never looked into where the raw materials come from, there not re cycleable, they cost more, there a bs scam.. LPG. can run any vehicle, clean.. my bronco, 82, runs on lpg only, 12.1 comp, as it is slow burning so needs high compression, bit tech for you id say.. 15 yrs, no probs.. maybe this, is why they are getting rid of lpg fill stations, so your forced to buy a fkn bs ev.. bronco is fast & scary, std engine, just high comp.. 360 ks to 90 lt.. i save the environment,,you dont,, fact.. i dont need bs, egr, def, cats, nothing.. or an ev station, powered by a diesel geni.. theres a vid of a guy in u.s., ran out of pixi,s [ electricity ], guy pulled over to help,, helped him get the geni started so he could carry on his journey, in the boot.... ausie slang....... fk that......
Evening Pete, Interesting stuff for the Caravan Owners amongst your followers. My prediction was around 50%, but the actual was even worse no surprises though when you have a 'total weight' of 4.2 Tonnes. Just shows how far EV motoring has to go before it equals the Petrol/ Diesel Equivalent in my opinion.
In what world is 1.4m/kWh -v- 2.8m/kWh **not** 50% ???? It is EXACTLY 50%. BTW, 50% is the the average loss of MPG that diesel or petrol cars suffer when towing.
@@terryjimfletcher I’ve been around caravans for a lot of years, 50+, and never known any tow car to be 50% of its solo mpg when towing, maybe 30-35% loss but never known worse than that.
To be honest the range impact on a teaditional car (SUV) is also isgnificant. We have an Audi Q7 (3L V6 pertrol) and its normal consumerption is 23 miles per US gallon. A couple of years ago we towed a 23 ft caravann (trailer in the US) from Orlando(Florida) to Frisco (Colorado) and back via Santa Fe (New Mexico) and the aaverage for the trip was 12 miles per US gallon. It was about half range per tank meaning that you have to tank up a lot more. and therefore the issue again is not range but how easy is it to charge vs fill up with petrol.
Mike - another real world comparison, thanks for explaining to the EV naysayers that physics is physics, nothing to do with the "fuel" used to pull the van.
@@terryjimfletcher I don't think anyone thought that - naysayers or otherwise - that the physics differs. The 2 problems are the range of a "fill" and the ability to "re-fill". Those things are to do with the "fuel" used.
@@terryjimfletcher Even if DV (Diesel Vehicle) uses twice as much towing (not what i've experienced), I can easily throw a couple of jerry cans or change my fuel tank to a long range version. In Australia some of the distances between service stations far exceed the Towing range of EVs on some of the popular caravan destinations (at the moment). DC charging in AUS is the pits. I guess the point is EVs are great, just not so much for heavy towing range. But let's see what the future brings. Would love my DV to have that torque, Would love my EV to have that range.
A diesel would have been somewhat better mate , and to be fair , a 3.0 litre v6 is going to be working harder than something with a bigger lazy engine in a petrol car..
I love towing with my EV. So much nicer than a petrol or diesel due to all that instant low down torque and no gears. But having to unhitch to charge up on longer journeys is a pain. Also, you do realise that the fuel efficiency reduction is the same wether it's electric, petrol or diesel?
What a surprise! My last petrol tow car did 40mpg solo and 20mpg towing. Half. My current EV Ioniq 6 does 4.5 mpkw solo and 2.4 towing. Half. When attaching the caravan the car resets the range from 320 to 160. I can safely tow for 100 miles with plenty of range to spare.. There are many charging hubs around with multiple chargers and room to unhook the caravan close by. Zap maps make planning this breeze. It’s really no hassle. It takes 15 to 20 mins while I eat some lunch to add another 100 miles range. That said most of my touring is within 100miles of home so I can just seek out a handy charger solo the following day.
Excellent example. These results are consistent with those of other manufacturers and weights, many are worse. Now, add the cold weather and mountains that we have here in Canada and the range becomes almost useless for towing or for hauling anything. And the availability of charging stations is much worse than you've encountered also. EV may be great for back and forth to office and home every night but it does not lend itself to travel.
@@nathansmith7153 yes. Was stationed in Manitoba in the 70's. Ever look at what -35 does to a Lithium battery.? i can send you factory charts... You would be walking...lol
Another great video and thank you for this. I am a caravanner, I tow a 1800kg twin axle, I get around 20-21mpg when towing so half my usual consumption so this doesn’t surprise me, but the charging situation when towing is enough to put me off getting an electric tow car any time soon.
I think towing a caravan behind an electric car is ideal. In fact all electric cars should come with a caravan as standard. I mean, given how long you have to wait in the middle of nowhere to charge every time, it's good to have the caravan with you.
Exactly right. The video doesn't say anything we don't know already. It's just practically showing the relationship in physics between energy and work. As you rightly show that relationship is the same for electric vehicles as it is for petrol vehicles. You could have equally towed a large caravan with a petrol powered car and be equally "shocked"!!
@@nomayor1 Fully agree but I think the use of this word in this video has another dimension - textbook stuff from the disgruntled petrol heads who are being forced to ditch their beloved V8's and seek retribution with ambiguous and even misleading claims against the electric car revolution.
@@marviwilson1853 What he is trying to show mainly is the practicallity of charging, we all know that towing means less miles per gallon but if it is petrol you would be able to pull up to the petrol pump and fill up, rather than having to unhook the van and leave it somewhere.
As an ex-caravanner I noticed that he did not check the nose weight of the caravan to ensure that it was less than the maximum tow-hook weight specification (normally 100kg), I used to set mine to about 80-90kg. If you don't adhere to this guide then you are likely to suffer from increased amounts of sway/wobble (with potentially catastrophic consequences to you, your caravan, and other roadusers.)
Too little weight on the hitch is also likely to give rise to very serious stability issues. There are some interesting TH-cam videos of this effect if you search for them.
Tow ball weight on the tow vehicle, is in the "vicinity" of between 10%-15% of the aggregate weight of what you are towing. The other thing to consider is, the maximum weight the tow bar can carry and the maximum weight the vehicle can "legally tow".
It was probably all done by caravan dealer off camera. Like mentioned it's a short basic video. Theres some picky people around with stupid comments (mikmat)
You are the first person I have watched who has pointed out the need to unhitch a trailer to charge the tow car. This situation is clearly farcical. We'll done that man. Regeneration will be reduced because the caravans own brakes will soak up some of the potential energy. Thank you for a interesting vlog.
Great video, and answered the question that most caravaners have worried and complained about. Firstly, the range of E.V's has improved substantially over the past 3 or 4 years, but the situation of trying to charge en route still has not been answered. Until we have chargers in lanes where the coaches and lorries park, so that it's not necessary to unhitch the caravan, we caravaners will still be driving diesel suv's by necessity. That is an unavoidable situation currently. I used to have a Volkswagen E-Golf and I loved it as a car, because it's a Golf, but I only kept it 5 months, because of range anxiety. In winter it would only have about 100 mile range, and if you put the heating on, it was reduced still further, same in summer with the air con on. I've have now gone back to a petrol Golf, because of that. No sane caravanner is going to unhitch in a services to charge their E.V separately and leave a caravan on it's own in a bay.Imagine if it's throwing it down! There is an awful long way to go before we can all drive around towing caravans with E.V's. Fact.
We tow with an EV and have frequently unhitched to charge. It’s no big deal, taking a few extra mins at either end of the stop. Definitely worth the hassle to be able to drive an EV.
@Toby Rees 40 mins, only if using a fast charger, do that too often and you'll be needing a new battery. Sadly this whole ev idea has not been properly thought through. As great as they are to drive they are simply not practical for many drivers.
Great video Pete. Imagine if you had a family of fours gear for a two week holiday in the van and boot the range would be decimated. Hours wasted at the services multiple times. You would have to set of two days early to make sure you get to your destination on time 🤣. I’ll stick to my diesel.
Safe to say regularly towing caravans is not an EV's forte! For example if you tow a caravan for two trips a year that is a small amount of extra time over the year but you get all the benefits when you are not towing. When does it become a big enough issue that a diesel is better than an EV over the course of a whole year?
@@supersurfer1 Driving anything is not environmentally friendly. If you want to be environmentally friendly you would walk everywhere. The next most efficient form of transport would be bicycle as minimal materials are used and little CO2 is created during manufacture for the distances you can travel over the lifetime of the bike. Towing a caravan is not an environmentally friendly thing to do whatever vehicle you tow with. Towing a vehicle with a diesel is most practical but it is also the least environmentally friendly way to do it due to emissions. The burning of fossil fuels is the main contributor to climate change. The historic and current actions of the fossil fuel industry have been immoral since the 1950's when the big oil companies did their own research into climate change, found out that burning fossil fuels harms everyone on the planet then carried on regardless for the £££££. Then there is obviously all of the fossil fuel related wars, disasters, oil spills etc some of which were entirely preventable that completely annihilate all organisms within hundreds of miles such as: Persian Gulf War BP's Deep water Horizon Ixtoc 1 Atlantic Express Mingbulak Fergana Valley Kolva River Nowruz Oil Field Castillo de Bellver Amoco Cadiz + many more. There are also the various historic and current wars killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people in history that have been triggered entirely or in part due to oil and fossil fuel resources. Having said all that I think what you are eluding to is lithium mines which have also created conflict primarily due to the high use of water. Yes there was and still are ethical issues in some regions where there are lithium mines. It started with the need to power laptops, then phones, tablets and all the other rechargeable electronics we all use and most recently the need for car batteries which has made the quantity required much much higher. Fortunately steps are being made to make lithium production more ethical such as different forms of extracting lithium without the need to use so much water and also different battery chemistries e.g. Iron Phosphate and others that use a fraction or no lithium at all. Cobalts another issue and is also used during the oil refining process. Long and short of it is that oil and gas extraction and the burning of fossil fuels is much worse for the environment and has had and still has more of an effect on humans than wind turbines, solar panels and lithium mining.
Hear in Australia . How many time would I need to recharge and how long will a recharge take. To drive between Melbourne and Sydney both with caravan and without caravan. In a petrol car it is 8 hr 55 min (877.7 km) via M31 and National Highway M31 with one say 10 minute re fuel? How many recharges, How long will each recharge take? In England aprox the same as Glenco to London city Airport.
I’ve been towing similar caravans for 14 years with a Ford S-max (420 NM). I’m not surprised by your results. I’m burning almost twice the amount of diesel, almost all the time when towing.
Interesting. For comparison, with a 2.0L petrol Avensis a few years back, fuel usage increased by about 60% when towing a caravan. Since it's a lower car I would expect the relative difference to be larger if the cause was mostly due to aerodynamics, but it seems there must be other factors that are more significant. Could it be that higher torque also translates to higher (relative) penalty of fuel economy?
@@benhetland576 My BMW 535d tows a 1700kg twin axle at 27-28mpg for which I normally get 42mpg with cruise. 550 range to 350 range roughly. Inclines with the extra weight I think are the biggest factor as I can steady state on level ground at low to mid-30s
@benhetland576 tip: drive the same speed with and without a tow trailer. There is 100% diference. This video is a surprise for people who don't understand that air resistance increases with the square of the speed. For a petrol car. For BEV. Primary school. I would never buy a car like this to tow a trailer long distances.
I am an Australian caravaner and I tow a 2.1 ton caravan with a Toyota FJ Cruiser. Our distances in Australia are humungous so towing with an EV is not even a possibility, snowballs chance in hell that it would work. FYI our caravans are a lot heavier over here a 26 ft would be over3 tons.😎📷🇦🇺
Yep we build stuff tough in Australia. My 18 ft Jayco Outback has independent suspension and a 6 inch chassis it’s ATM weight is a touch over 2.1 tons. Tows like a charm. 🇦🇺📷😎
As a comparison. I have towed with a 2 litre diesel 4wd many thousands of miles with trailers from 1.5t to 2 t and not very aerodynamic ones. My mpg goes from about 44 solo to 30 when towing although I go a little faster. So ICE drops 30 % and it appears EV 50%. Wait till you take one in the mountains.
I am also wondering just how easy it would be to get back to the chargers once you have dropped the caravan off at the trailer park at the services. I think in a lot of service stations the trailer park is in a separate part of the services and you may find yourself having to go back against the flow of traffic to get the car back to the section with the chargers. Seeing how many EV's have a very poor range when towing, it's about time chargers were placed in the trailer and car areas of services.
I got a better idea. How about nobody buy these and we the people decide what we'd like, not a govt. panel of so-called self annointed "experts" that are really paid to lie to us. This like their climate change hobgoblin is all a scam to control people.
Very interesting video. Firstly I would like to agree, the team at Chichester Caravans are superb! The range results don’t surprise me as much as I thought they would, we tow with a petrol Audi A4. In everyday driving we get around 42mpg, when towing that drops to around 19mpg, so in many ways the EV was more efficient at towing. As others have said, it isn’t so much the range that is the issue, but the charging infrastructure; the lack of it and that it is not designed with caravaners (or caravanists 😉) in mind! Like you my results are not in the slightest scientific haha. Thanks for the really interesting video!
You should only use diesel for towing. Look it up. Diesel gives you far better performance due to torque. It’s all to do with combustion, too detailed for me to explain but you will find the fuel efficiency hardly drops with a diesel car towing a caravan
@@jonneym Sorry mate but that is blatantly false yes diesels engines are superior for towing but they still have a significant increase of fuel consumption when towing. I own multiple diesels utes in our business and the fuel consumption with a van of this size would increase significantly.
@@timveitch6579 I used to have a Mercedes 350cdi it had a 3 litre engine and would do 45 mpg at 60mph and would still do 40mpg driving across Germany at 95mph Diesel cars have superior efficiency over petrol but we are all going to die from pollution like our forefathers who somehow are living longer than ever
@timveitch. Towed a caravan for many years, always with a diesel car and never did I experience 50% loss in range or anything like it. More like 20% if that.
A lot of charging stations on the continent are moving towards a drive-through design more like a petrol station layout. I think ours need to look like that too before it becomes practical to tow a caravan long distances.
@@sahhull EVs are great and already better than ICE for most purposes. I own and run both. Postponing the 2030 date would just disincentivise the companies installing the charging infrastructure so be completely counterproductive.
Great video as always. I tow a caravan with a diesel tow car. The caravan is 1.8 tons max weight and the car has a 70 litre tank. To give you a comparison against your findings, I travelled down from Durham to Royston (about 220 miles) and when I arrived I still had just over a quarter of a tank left. What I did find on the journey down was that when I tried to stop at two service areas, the parking was completely full so there was no option to stop. It would have been a show stopper with an EV. Another factor is that when I had arrived at Durham ( on way down from Scotland) and pitched the caravan, I popped out to the local Shell station and filled up the car. The process of driving to the petrol station, filling up and getting back to the caravan took 15 minutes. I really like the concept of the EV but I think we are years away from them replacing diesel and petrol cars.
The above EV has the usable battery capacity of 105kWh that is the same as 10 litres of diesel in energy. It used 67kWh to tow for 59 miles that is 42 mpg efficiency.
I am in South Australia, and tow a 2500kg caravan with a Mitsubishi Pajero (Shogun in the UK). Normal diesel usage (no load) is 9-10 litres per 100 klms. Towing is 16-18 litres per 100 kgs. It seems to me that the performance is not that dissimilar , but the range is greater on diesel. Still best bang for buck is diesel. Eventually the battery will be improved, or hydrogen vehicles will become available for Caravan towing, or the Governments will ban anyone owning caravans (and that may be no joke!!!!)
Australia long distances and lack of accommodation in remote unpopulated Australia ( that's most of Australia 🇦🇺). Electric vehicle makers have to go a long way to convince Australians towing a caravan with air conditioning on ( because of the heat) that the nearest charging stations is 200 miles (over 300km) down the road and will they make it ? EVs just are not selling in regional, rural and remote Australia. I wonder why?!!!.....😂
After towing a 1 tonne army trailer from Swindon to Bangor, I averaged 27mph. Without trailer it's ~32mpg. This was in a Discovery 3 with 5 people on board. And of course the Discovery self levels. Do remember that the Disco has the aerodynamics of a brick! But, you hardly notice you are towing ;)
Yeah, but you're throwing away 2/3 of the energy in the fuel in waste heat. It's only because you can have virtually unlimited energy in your tank that this works. 32mpg without a trailer is frankly appalling.
How big / tall / wide was it? If it had a frontal area no bigger than the Disco you're not really adding much load. Once up to speed, aero is far, far more important than weight.
26:33(ish) One of the things that will pull down your efficiency while towing the caravan is that every time you brake, the caravan will use it's non regen "rollover" brakes. So of a combined weight of about 4 tonnes, less than half of that feeds into the regen system. The whole point of a rollover brake is that it prevents the caravan pushing the car during deceleration: great for stability but not so great for efficiency on minute roads The heavier the caravan, the greater that effect; and likewise every time you have to slow down en route you lose all the kinetic energy of the massive caravan
This is a BRILLIANT point. Caravan manufacturers should be building "regen axles" that take the signal from the stop light and apply braking by regeneration. The van could therefore help charge the EV battery pack.
Interesting video. I used to tow a horse trailer 1 a 16.3 hand Cob in using my 2008 Ford Kuga 2.0 (136) Diesel AWD. My fuel consumption towing was around 32mpg compared to 42mpg solo. Trailer weight loaded was around 1600kg. So the diesel efficiency was far better than an EV. You once again highlighted the infrastructure failures of EV’s when charging is required when towing a trailer or indeed Caravan. So again, internal combustion engines win!
The above test clearly shows that the BMW had an efficiency equivalent of 42 mpg. It used 67 kWh for the towing and one litre of diesel has the energy of about 10kWh. BMW won.
@@badchefi For now and the far foreseeable future I will not have an EV! I have a promaster van and get on open road 33 mpg. It is a diesel and it does ok. EVs use up more resources, in the long run. EVs have a larger footprint per convivence sake and they have not come into their own yet....I know they will get there...but not before 2030 or I think not even before 2040. Remember we are running out of resources that are use to build the batteries. When a more and better battery and better building materials appear, then maybe the EVs will come into their. But not now....Oh it takes oil to make and build the EVs, so the gain is still the same with the dependence on oil.
@@patrickkelley6780 again you share a misconception based on misinformation like the above. The BMW returned 42mpg and uses less resources over its lifetime. The footprint of an EV is smaller over its lifetime compared to a diesel or petrol vehicle.
I have a few comments. I'm in the USA so all numbers will be miles, gallons, and miles per gallon for reference. 1) I tow a 22 foot, 5800 lb maximum (3886 lb empty) with a Ram Ecodiesel (3.0L turbo diesel, v6). I get about 25 mpg highway not towing and about 10-12 towing all at about 60-65 mph. The drag really is a big deal when it comes to vehicle efficiency. 2) I have questions about the impact drawing that much energy regularly from batteries can have. The weather was cooler for you during your tests but towing in warmer weather is going to be a challenge to the engineers design of the cooling system. 3) Lastly, the relative slow charge rate versus "charging" my diesel just is a pure negative for me. I do not tow often but everything is at least 50 miles away one way. Given my location in the UP of Michigan, just getting out of the UP to see family is a 180 mile trip east or west. 300 miles to see my family and 670 miles to see my in-laws. Towing would just destroy the trip. And before some slap talks about "flying", our local airport has 2 flights in and out a day and neither are very useful. Next best airport is 120-ish miles away. Plus, with 4 family members, a round trip flight costs about $2k US and doesn't account for either renting a car at the destination or having family drive up to Cleveland to pick us up ... a 75 mile one way drive. Total rain coat of a situation. The same 670 mile trip took 1 day to drive with my diesel. About 11 hours of driving and only needed one fill up. 4) One massive advantage of an EV would be during hunting season. My diesel, as quiet as it compared to 40 years ago version, it is still a bit noisy when I head into the woods for some alone time with nature pursing the mighty whitetail.
Not to promote another channel but Matt Watson on CarWow did a somewhat similar test with a Skoda Enyak. The test was on a test track to enable a constant 60mph but used differing conditions ie number of people on board, HVAC environment, etc., and with and without caravan. The energy consumption was equally shocking when towing. Your test was much more real-world though in terms of charge point access on vehicle and at site. I’ve recently been doing a lot of touring and camping and was considering going EV with caravan. Completely dissuaded now!
Great vid & as expected, especially the BIG charging problem whilst towing. Imagine a ram packed services during the summer holidays, nightmare! Also most people couldn't afford an EV with that much range in the first place so the outcome would be a disaster.
Can you imagine Tebay Services in the summer months waiting for chargers? Years away from EV being simple and stress free. Depends what route coaches and trucks take? If they go electric then big bays will be made available. But will they? All I see is costs increasing!
Great video!! I tow a 1.3 tonne caravan with my Mercedes c250 - a solid tow car. My efficiency drops from 50mpg to 30mpg with the van, but I can still travel from the north midlands to north Devon on half a tank. If I’m gentle and it’s not too windy. I would love an EV, and am sure I could get to my destination ok, but I’m not confident I could get the car charged to get home… it’s still diesel for me, for now.
@@badchefi you miss my point - lack of infrastructure at the other end to recharge, and lack of capacity in the BMW is the problem. Give me a range of 500 miles, with the van on the back, then we'll talk. As it is, the BMW is a silly looking paperweight when it comes to my needs.
For those wondering why an EV is so affected by towing (the logic works similarly with high speeds, weight, etc) the reason is that electric vehicles are very efficient and hold very little energy. Let me try to use some numbers. An electric vehicle uses lets say 150wh/km to move at 100Km/h, while a petrol engine may have a consumption of 6l/100Km (47mpg) at that speed ( which considering that a l of gas has around 9.7kwh/l takes us to around 580 wh/km). The difference between 150wh/km and 580wh/km is mostly due to heat losses in the petrol engine and exhaust, so let's assume (I know it is oversimplified but lets keep it easy) that such losses keep constant regardless of the engine load. And remember that both cars use the same energy at the wheel to move its on weight. Now you add a caravan. And suddenly you need an additional 100wh/km to move at 100Km/h. For the EV that means that the consumption goes from 150wh/km to 250wh/km (+66%) while on the petrol car, the consumption goes from 580wh/km to 680wh/km (17% increase or 6l/100km to 7l/100km, or 47mpg to 40mpg). Again, this is a wild oversimplification because some additional losses will occur in the petrol engine with higher load and the aerodynamic effect will typically be worse on an EV, but you get the point.
The other thing with caravans is when people load them up with extra bits for their trip . Also the ground clearance of the towing car as a friend found out after the first ramp he went up with the tow hitch dragging on the ground .Here in Australia I see very little future for EV towing across country . The big EV 4 wheelers in the US have a 900 kg battery and a price tag of $150,000 US
F150 is about 100k Canadian. Trouble is supply chain issues for delivery but that will surely ease over time. The competition is heating up from Chev, Toyota, and Tesla for this lucrative market. Every farmer in North America wants EV pickups so the residential folks will have to stand in line.
The other thing to bear in mind is that who tows an empty caravan on holiday, so your range figures would have been even less and likely that you would not have made it back without a pitstop for a recharge and the associated fiasco that would have involved.
@@fwdesecretary1500 i think some of the grey army caravaners may dispute that with you mate , half of the charm of using a caravan imo , is just while on a road trip finding a spot that takes your fancy and pulling up for what ever reason , be it to throw some snags on the barby for lunch , or just stay at a scenic rest area at your leisure that takes your fancy until the bug to move on bites , at least thats my whole reason for having a caravan. A caravan means ...... i dont have to stop in a motel , to me thats the whole point of just chilling out and going days possibly even weeks at a time without having to visit the big smoke for supplies if i like a spot .
@@PetrolPed your comment goes well with the way you distorted and withheld the fact that the BMW is superior in efficiency when towing compared to any diesel. But I guess you call yourself petrolped for a reason 🤣
Just confirms why I have a "dirty" Land Rover Discovery 5 diesel. We tow our caravan throughout the UK & Europe more than 8 times per year. Q for you - was the caravan fridge also being powered by the car? Another valid point is the towing weight, so many caravan manufacturers are trying to bring these weights down to make it in theory plausible to tow. However, if you have ever towed an empty box trailer they are inherently unstable until laden, not even the Alko TCS handles this very well. Well presented and some great camera work.
Yes Pete, you have highlighted what I thought was the biggest problem with EVs. They don't have the range of Petrol/Deisel engines as yet when towing. and moreover, the difficulties in charging them when towing a caravan. I drive a Volvo XC-60 and tow a modest caravan. and the ease and range of the combination. is such that I can just about do the full trip on one tank of Deisel. Had I gone Electric then such trips would be fraught with problems. Interestingly, most of the CAMC sites now have a charging point for EV towcars, however you have to get there first.
This confirms my understanding. An EV is a non starter for a caravanner. It makes choosing a new, so called, greener car very difficult. A diesel is hard to beat. An alternative is a PHEV but most are petrol which is not so good but at least effective if you do lots of short distance local miles when not towing. Thanks for taking an interest in this topic.
IN SHORT , TOWING VEHICLES DOUBLE THEIR CONSUMPTION ON THAT BOMBSHELL what an utterly pointless video By the way you utter novices , the brakes on the van will increase your consumption Old guys in EVS , WOW
There was talk here in Australia that any EVs will not be allowed to tow anything. One reason was the unknown safety concerns with new technologies by insurance companies and as you clearly pointed out about charging stations. The areas required for car and caravan, boat or trailers will require more land and more stations to be built. This is a long way from happening here but there are many petrol stations cashing in for only car charging. The biggest argument here with EV cars is the fact that to charge your car we are using fossil fuels to create electricity. We have now been told that the price to change your batteries will be more than the cost of the car. This will also be interesting to see how the cost of insurance will be compared to petrol cars. Great report on what needs to be addressed and I just wonder if you would have made it back if the caravan was loaded up.
Here in Ontario Canada, there is a road tax on fossil fuels that goes towards roads, road construction, bridges and maintenance. Fuel bought in a local gas station, a part of the road tax goes that municipality to go towards their roads. EV are driving on roads they are not helping to maintain
can you do a feature on the lifespan of an EV compared to a normal car who's life span depends on how well the car is driven and looked after, rather than the lifespan of the battery? and also on how the world is going to dispose of the extremely toxic batteries. and the exact cost of producing said batteries on the environment, right from the initial mining. And then lets look at the cost to human life when one of these batteries catches fire and a fire fighter accidentally ingests the super toxic fumes from the battery! but don't forget to look at a place like the Sidney Opera house where the car park, is underneath the Opera house, and if it was full of EV's and one started the obvious chain reaction, how many people would be trapped inside the building and incinerated to death?
Your fuel usage fits well with my nearly 30 years of caravaning. Very roughly speaking, I would use twice as much petrol/diesel with the van in tow. My other observation was that the weight of the caravan did not affect the performance much. I wouldn't notice the difference between an empty caravan and a fully loaded van. However, a head wind would be very hard work.
So did you do tank to tank fill up, just don’t understand how you halved your mpg, so from 40 mpg in a diesel you got 20 mpg ? Clearly something wrong with your car, i towed with a diesel Mercedes 2.5lt and dropped from average 48mpg to 40mph tank to tank fill up.
Same here. Normal European combo: My VW Touran 1.4 TSI with 1350 kg (loaded) single axle caravan: fuel consumption doubles towing the caravan driving ca. 100 km/h on highway.
That is a great caravan!! Towing almost always halves range, EVEN in a gas vehicle!! Our truck (US) looses 40% of its unladen range. I wish I could find that fine a caravan here in the US. Makers here think weight is no issue. NONE are are under 4000 lbs and 26 ft long and those that are close are neither aerodynamically fit or more than spartan inside. Adding the caravan, you increased total weight by ~60% and at least doubled your frontal area. My wife and I (in US) only travel a maximum of 300 miles per day. And that’s with a 30-40 min stop to refuel/restroom stop/get lunch mid day. We don’t rush (60mph), and we stop by 3pm. It IS our holiday away after all, But towing a caravan DOES take notably more time unless you’re determined to take the joy out of the trip.
@@stevensmith662 It’s not rubbish, it’s a travel trailer that has a 10 foot tall x 8 foot wide frontal area and weighs greater than 4000 lbs. The frontal area alone causes at least a 40% loss in fuel economy for EVERY truck I’ve towed with, gas or diesel.
Good test, one question, as an ex caravaner myself, in my experience when towing it is not so much the weight you are towing that determines fuel consumption, but whether there is a head wind or not, as wind has a significant effect on fuel consumption.
Battery electric vehicles have such poor energy density fair to a single gal of diesel or unleaded fuel it's a joke how pathetic it is you just don't get the power out of it that's why so much power is required to get it to move the extra weight or deal with the extra drag because the other fuel has so much power it would just push right through it without really using much more fuel at all
Hey PetrolPeds, as an ex-caravanner i will say that the WLTP of an petrol car also less is without a trailer. In my youth i driven a 5 series 6 cylinder where the consumption almost 60% more was with a trailer. A fuel consumption of 18,5mi/gallon in stead of 29,5 mi/gallon. The caravan we had weighed 1200kg in stead of the Swift with a weight of 1600kg. Conclusion in my opinion, its not so bad 😮
Another excellent video. In the past I have towed caravans with a range of vehicles including a Peugeot 405, Rover 75 and a VW Caravelle. You always have a higher fuel consumption figure and the same is to be expected when you tow with an electric vehicle. In theory electric cars should make very good towing vehicles because of their extra weight and low centre of gravity, assuming the batteries a under the floor. The problem, as you and Andrew Ditton who’s a Caravan Journalist who tows with a KIA EV6, have highlighted, is going to be access to public chargers and places like motorway services areas are going to have to install more chargers anyway and include access for electric vehicles towing caravans, horse boxes, etc.
Andrew Little - at last a person with a sensible approach and a good understanding of towing. Shame Petrol Ped can't do 5mins of research like I did and find out that petrol and diesel cars average about the same loss of MPG when towing. You can't argue with physics.
Thank you for your kind comments. Personally I suspect that the reduction in range has more to do with aerodynamics than the weight of the caravan. I’m thinking of buying a BMW i4 40 (rear wheel drive only) with a 7’6” wide caravan, which I anticipate would need charging every 100-120 miles, which corresponds to comfort and tea breaks, which you should be able to make yourself in the caravan.
@@terryjimfletcher I have to disagree, we have a similar weighted caravan and my old 1997 4.6 Range Rover drops from 19mpg empty on a run to an average of 14.5 mpg when towing so about a quarter less mpg not a half.
@@terryjimfletcher Trouble is diesel car will still do hundreds of miles towing from full tank even with range loss. Other key fact is you add hundreds of miles back in couple of minutes refueling. EV charging would be couple of hours and more stops for same range 🤔
£150k on the road there with car and caravan. Anyone who ties that amount of depreciating £s in that nonsense is completely mad. A guy who buys that BMW only stays in 4*+ hotels. The caravan can be towed by a £4k Mondeo or V70 and that's really where it is intended. ICE consumption is greater but if a diesel car will do 600 miles on a full tank then 300 while towing is enough to get you from home to a caravan site without refuelling on the way.
Spent some time with my family in our caravan years ago in the Scottish highlands. £3k caravan, £10k Discovery 300tdi. Guy pulled in to the next pitch. £80K Range Rover, £25k van. Same holiday , same site, same view. Still, entirely his choice I guess how to spend his money.
@@JohnnyMotel99 .LOL, can’t remember , I remember he was a nice guy though. I guess his was a lifestyle choice, some people really hate hotels and like the freedom caravans give them. Interesting- my children all remember the caravan holidays more than the others they had.
Caravan 1.6 tonne, car 2.6 tonne. That’s considerably more than 3.5 tonnes which most people are limited to driving. I appreciate that you’ve gone right to the upper end of the scale for both car and caravan and there are many combinations which will fall inside the 3.5t threshold but what about the gas bottle, food, drink, bikes, kayaks, caravan awning, picnic table and chairs and all the other associated items you can caravanning. The idea of having an electric car for towing is completely unworkable because of the weight of the batteries. When will this world realise that you can’t have your cake and eat it, there needs to be a trade off in what you can achieve and right now towing a caravan with an electric car on a standard B licence is so restrictive you might as well holiday on your driveway.
@jimblonduk Yes, and when you reach 70 years old, it drops down to a combined weight of 3,500 kg unless you pay for a medical and apply for a lorry licence.
@Gary Leishman - There has to be some advantages to being an old git. I fall into this category, I can also drive a 7.5 tonne non articulated and a road roller 😆
I occasionally tow 2 tonnes with my 4 litre 290 kw petrol car so I'm not surprised by the results. Because in my experience a petrol or diesel would probably use twice as much fuel in the same circumstances as your experiment. The best type of vehicle for this type of work is a diesel. That is why large rigs on the road and tractors on farms use diesel engines. By weight a 1000 kg battery could be replaced by 1100 litres of diesel and at 5 litres per 100kms would take you 2200 kms. EV proponents are deluded if they think this nonsense can save the planet.
For me this was expected, half the efficacy per mile, twice the battery % used, half the range. This is why I keep my Tesla model S for basic driving around the city and suburbs and my diesel 4x4 for towing. I can easily get over 600km towing a big 7m long boat.
I thought Tesla was going to have their own low cost insurance? Seem s like a pipedream now just as the practicality of EVS . Just to tow a wrecked EV and store it 80 feet away from everything in the lot costs thousands. The hidden costs are insane
As a caravaner. I tow one with a unladen weight of 850 kg. My diesel is a 2.0 ltr. When full it has an estimated range of 500 mls. it averages round about 33 mls. Which I think is quite good
I recently spoke with the guys selling the new Maxus T90 pick up. I use my 2011 Navara D40 to tow my caravan and when they asked what I would use the Maxus for, they told me to stick with my old truck. Apparently the Maxus can tow 1500KG but would run out of juice in an hour.
Real world tests are ‘scientific’ ..a valid test is a valid test, you are adding data points. Scientific principles encourage this. You’ve stated your variables.
@@joeynessily no they’re not. Real world tests take place under infinitely variable conditions, in the real world. Try telling me the “scientific’ fuel consumption tests are in any way relevant, or accurate, in the real world.
Once again you talk about issues related to EV’s that no one that I am aware of is talking about in Canada. Most TH-cam segments just talk about the cars and how well appointed they are pros and cons and so on. I watched your segment on batteries and learned more than anything I have seen or read so far. I think Petrol Ped is now my go to source for topics related to EV’s. Keep up the good work!
So glad you did this review. This is something I've been telling people for a while. I think it's a real concern for the caravan industry and could ultimately cause the death of them. We caravan as a family and have a similar twin axle caravan to the one you used. I use a Tesla Model 3, but for towing we use the wife's Mercedes ML SUV. What concerns me is that more and more vehicles that previously would easily tow up to 2000kg are now becoming either electric or hybrid with a max towing capacity of 1500kg. This is very much limiting the options when we come to change the tow car. Despite the range the BMW iX is a capable tow vehicle, however what you didn't mention is the cost. Would be out of my range and that of a lot of caravanners.
It’s just another reason (among many) as to why the entire EV industry is a white elephant. For niche use in an urban environment it will suit some people (subject to a reliable and accessible charging system), but outside those circumstances EVs are just too inflexible and unpredictable.
@@nigelpearson9101 auburns - others people’s breathing is optional… Find me a journey an EV *can’t* do. Oh, that’s right, they can do them all, they might need a slightly different plan… but you already stop for toilet breaks, food, and a brief rest.
@@JohnR31415 I'm sure there are plenty of journeys an EV's can't do towing a trailer. A rather large 116KWH battery and you're range is 150 miles or less is pathetic. Therefore, any journey with more than 150 miles between charging stations would be out of the question or any journey that was more than 75 miles away from the nearest charging station. 75 miles is nothing.
@@JohnR31415"Find me a journey an EV can’t do" OK Mt Isa (QLD Australia) to Darwin (NT Australia), maybe in the future there'll be charging points along the way, many of the remote downs are installing diesel powered EV charging stations, but there' none there yet In reality an EV can do any journey that a ICE car or horse and cart can do, no argument, it's all how much planning you need to do and how long it will take,. The journey I mentioned you can do it, jut bring your own diesel generator and diesel, the question is how much longer will the trip take you and is it worth it for driving an EV?
Thanks for the video. I also tow with an EV but my Scamp 13 deluxe comes in at 2000 pounds, and my Model Y has a 3500 pound capacity. I normally can get 3.5 to 4 plus miles per kw depending on the type of driving. While towing in a non-mountain environment, I get a little over 2 miles per kw. I also reduce speed to 60 mph. Tesla here in the US has started putting in a stall that you can pull straight in. Sometimes, there are 2 of them. Remember, the effect of towing on petrol vehicles is also significantly reduced, but the ease of finding a petrol station is significantly easier for the time being.
I can’t imagine doing my camping trips of many hundred miles towing my trailer with roof box fitted in an electric car. Total nightmare, just not fit for purpose other than daily commute if u can charge at home.
Excelent video! The possitive thing is that I like the design of the caravan and BMW in towing mode, just wow. Less possitive is the range if you go on vacation with a heavy caravan. Charging every 150 miles makes you quiet limitted on adventures.
Can you do the same with an ICE vehicle. Physics will be the same I suspect, adding more weight, rolling resistance and air resistance requires more energy input. There's no getting around it.
Agree. It’s an energy density issue. The 116kWh battery is equivalent to something like 2.37 UK gallons of diesel, so despite all of this technically the Beemer achieved somewhere in the range of 65 miles to the gallon 😂
My EV6 AWD pulls 1600 kg and then needs about 30 - 50% more energy as usual 16,8 kWh on 100 km. The German ADAC tested also coming to similar results in summertime going to Italy!
Some advice learned from this experiment if you want to be an EV caravaner: 1. Get a good, efficient, high-capacity battery, and sturdy EV. 2. Plan your trips to camping caravan-friendly areas where charging overnight can be done on the spot without having to worry about untowing, or which parking design is easy to charge the EV and the caravan utilities. 3. Keep your tires well pressured.
Fantastic video Ped. About time someone did a proper test like this with a proper, realistic caravan, not the usual micro-vans that have been used to try and make towing with an EV appear to be a realistic proposition. A stagecoach would give shorter travel times long journeys than an EV towing a large caravan.
The New Forest is a lovely part of the world. I towed a caravan there with my Morris Ital 1.7 estate and it did the job well. We have a Nissan X Trail to tow a caravan these days.
Great vid as always. As an EV owner I’m the first to admit they still aren’t for everyone. The chargers have a lot of issues (ignoring the availability / reliability issues). Most of them are in places and positioned back when EVs were a much smaller niche, and most vehicles were the size of a Nissan leaf. The positioning has a lot of issues. Try using some of them if you have a wheelchair for instance. My wife doesn’t like driving our ev long distance as a lot of the charge points are in the far end of a dimly lit car park and often very secluded. Something which as a man I just hadn’t considered.
Great video - fair test, massive caravan / massive EV. One error I noticed (and only cos I have an i4 so am familiar with BMW OS8) : at 10’20” the displayed 2.5kWh is not how much charge you used, but how much the car regenerated from braking. Similarly, at 13’50” you have regenerated 6.0kWh (at this point you had used 32% of battery, so around 36kWh). At the end of the second day (32’30”) you had regenerated 5.4kWh, so about the same.
That price is what makes this test unrealistic for the average driver. But Kia, Hyundai offer towing capacity of 1600kg for less than £50k. Still a lot of money, but.
Very interesting video and many thanks for doing this. I’m a caravan owner with a leased Volvo XC60 mild hybrid diesel and it tows the caravan very well, I hardly know it’s there. The interesting fact I get roughly less than half mpg (28 as opposed to 47) but my range hasn’t been a problem because we haven’t as yet travelled very far. EV’s are going to be a big challenge for most people at any time, towing a caravan will be a massive problem if towing it more than 100 miles. The whole industry needs a wake up call and need to build more charging stations like Gridserve were you can pull in very much like a normal petrol station. Only problem is you’ve probably blocked off 3 other bays or can’t fit in because others are already on charge.
@@PetrolPed Don't worry you will not have a car soon they are slowly being phased out, your caravan will be useless unless you are keeping it in your garden.
@@farmernige the mild hybrid Volvo doesn’t provide power for vehicle motion. The diesel engine is connected to a 8 speed automatic gearbox not a generator. Fuel economy is better than non hybrid like the previous model. We never towed with the old model so I don’t what the fuel economy was when towing. The point is if any car is towing the fuel or electric economy would be a lot less therefore reducing the range. Currently my Volvo can have a range of up to 600 miles when towing I’m guessing it will be about 300 or roughly half. With an EV at maximum you are only starting with about 300 miles if you’re lucky so when towing it will be a lot less.
My question would be: ‘what were you expecting?’ With electric vehicles distance is going to be about weight and wind resistance. Doubling the weight and resistance halves the range. Isn’t that what you expected? Petrol fuel consumption towing chews through the fuel. Caravaning with an electric car will be different. Caravans will probably need to have a huge battery as part of the van just to get some sort of range.
Really informative and relevant video as usual Ped. My son does some amateur motor racing and I tow his car with a 3 series touring (petrol). The weight of the trailer is similar to your caravan. Consumption drops from around 37 mpg to 29 mpg which is a lot less of a drop than your experience. I also go to Anglesey, Oulton Park and Snetterton (from Oxford), so the distance and charge elements you highlighted are hugely relevant. Drive through chargers are definitely necessary plus a lot of extra time allowed for the journey if using electric! Thanks Ped
I. Found it really interesting for the same reasons. I tow the race car with a Skoda a superb and it drops to around 35mpg from 40. I fear I'll be hanging up the helmet rather than spending the amount of time required to get to circuits with an electric tow car.
The energy required to tow a trailer/caravan is significantly more than just the tow vehicle alone as demonstrated by this video. The weight of the tow is part of this which was discussed early in the video. What was not mentioned that I recall was the effect of the frontal area of the tow. My understanding is that more than 1/2 the extra power required to tow a camper is due to drag from the frontal area. In the US poptop campers are available which use canvas sides and when being towed are 1/4-1/3 the normal height. This decreases weight and vastly decreases wind drag since much of the camper is immediately behind the tow vehicle and shielded from most of the wind. I believe that poptops are less common in the UK than the US but there are some. It would be interesting to see the test redone with a poptop.
AS I have always suspected this trans to EVs was never thought out very well. I personally think we need to be looking at Hydrogen power or dual-fuel vehicles. It's never going to work for long-haul/towing/HGVs until all these things are sorted out. It's not possible to run EVHGVs around most of Scotland & even busses are having problems
At least when you have an accident in a hydrogen vehicle you wont have to bother about anything else because neither you, your vehicle, caravan, family or the car you crashed into will exist.
I wonder how the loss of battery % might have been with a carload of people, dog in the back, and all the holidaying paraphernalia, food, drink, cycles, etc. that a family might normally take on the summer holiday. What are the stats for a journey that includes running AC on a really hot day or heating on a really cold day vs not having to run either? Are they much of a drain on the battery?
The extra weight and AC wouldn’t make much difference. The bikes on the back are another thing entirely- that would hammer your range because in an EV it’s all about being streamlined.
I am driving a comparable combination: BMW iX M60 and a caravan (double axle/ 2 tons loaded) I agree to all your findings. To adjust to the ev specifics I plan my longest daily distances to around 400 km with a lunch break to charge ... also the tyre pressure should be at the upper limit, "surfing" in the shadow of a truck (controlled typically at 87 km/h) gives you a 20% better result in range- we travel outside holidays so there is no jam at the charging stations
Make a car sold without batteries - cheap. Rent batteries from a replacement source, when you need charge then drop battery and pick up a new one fully charged, would be quicker than filling with petrol. REPLACEABLE BATTERIES the obvious answer. PS, I understand this is already being done with scooters in Vietnam.
A very interesting video and definitely highlights of the issues of using an electric car for towing. There is a very popular caravan TH-camr who currently has an electric tow car and a smaller caravan. However he is finding much the same issues as yourself in this test! With regards, towing efficiency a caravan or horsebox is much worse than towing a car trailer just down to the aero dynamics. With that conclusion, I’ll probably stick to my 3L V6 E class estate 😆
That adaptive speed cruise control...what a fantastic thing that is. It allows you to drive a set distance and at the same speed as the car in front of you (without cruise control) wants to drive at! No worries...if you are set at 69mph and some Joe cuts in front of you after a little sea sawing overtaking, then you can now drive at their speed....65mph....62mph...68mph...55 mph... When you are driving a car that has this fantastic feature, then the first thing that you need to do, is find the button that switches it off.
Interesting. I use a BMW 530d Touring 2018 with a 1500kg van. I reckon I’d get 38 on your trip solo and about 25 with the van, so say a 33% penalty. The EV had a 50% drop. The future doesn’t look to positive does it? Great video. Thank-you.
Same here except trailer not quite as heavy and my MPG penalty was between 15 and 20%. Love my diesel beemer and would not trade it for an EV until forced to do so.
Great video. Other Videos show about 50% reduction in range and the problem with using public charging when towing. I believe the GridServe stations allow for charging whilst hitched. I think if you had an EV and wanted to tow, it would be easier to hire an ICE vehicle for that journey. Not ideal I know.
"A petrol car towing a caravan still has around 40% on average of its range without the caravan, a diesel car even around 50%, but with an EV, the range goes down to a HALF!" - What a shocker. 🙄
@@FP194 Two hours is a factor 4 or more exaggeration for pretty much any current EV that can tow a caravan to begin with. But yes, EVs are not going to be the car of choice for extended caravan tours at least for quite some time, I‘ll happily agree to that. I‘m not arguing that EVs are ideal for caravans - far from it, obviously. This video, however, is about the relative range loss of an EV with a caravan as compared to itself without the caravan, and then tries to sell an even surprisingly good result as devastating. And that bothers me.
Agree, any caravan towing will about double fuel consumption of a tow car, so would expect the EV to double the electric use. What is the suprise? On a personal opinion, the BMW looks utterly ugly!
I don't believe that we will ever see the (no choice) situation. People will not put up with foolish politicians for very long. Petrol vehicles will always be available.
Great video, especially highlighting the nightmare of charging for us caravaners. Obviously there’s an impact on fuel economy when towing with diesel, not 50% but still measurable, it would be interesting to do a direct comparison of the impact of the same trailer on broadly comparable vehicles using different fuels. We’re a niche sector but @andrewditton has the biggest following of any U.K. caravanning channel, and he swapped to towing a small caravan with an EV6 about 12months ago. He’s been brilliantly documenting the reality of living with an EV tow car. I tow solo (often as a solo adult with my 2 boys with me) so it’s completely impossible for me to unhitch and leave the caravan somewhere to go off and charge. Not only that, but often motorway services are set up that either the turns are far too tight to get a caravan into the cars car park, so the caravan has to be unhitched and left in the caravan parking and car driven around to the charger! In many service stations the one way design means it’s impossible to get back to the caravan parking! That’s if there’s even space in the caravan parking, it’s often full of confused/lazy car drivers causing those of us driving 3.5-5tonne rigs to delay a break until the next services (if that even has space…) - not good for safety! Lots of work to do for charging forecourt and caravan designers, aerodynamics really are key and that trend, which was big in the late 80s/early 90s, has been forgotten during recent decades - time for a caravan aerodynamics revival! Well done on those New Forest roads, my caravan is relatively skinny and still it barely fits! Thanks again, really excellent to see the impact of a big van and really appreciate these issues being highlighted so there might be a future for family caravanning!
@@giorgosa most already have solar on but at only 100watts ish out of the factory and 100Ah AGM batteries I.E. you can get about 60Ah (a bit more when new) usable out of it. If manufacturers switched to LiFePO4 which is currently down to 6x cost, then at least they’d save about 50% weight and the depth of discharge available is much better. What are you proposing that the solar enabled trailer feeds power back to the towing vehicle? Look up the Dethleffs CoCo home, that was a design idea of that from a few years ago. At ~1.4KWh per mile even with 300watts on the roof and Sahara levels of sunshine that’s not going to get you very far… Or are you thinking that the trailer should have a powered axle and thus takes most of the strain off of the towing vehicle thereby keeping usage at ~2.8KWh per mile as shown in this vid? That’s the tech Thor industries (owner of Hymer, Airstream, Elddis, etc.) are working on at the moment BUT in addition to the tech being perfected that also requires law change because the trailer then becomes an active vehicle rather than a slave to the towing vehicle. Even with 200Ah of lithium batteries on board that’s a mere 2.4Kwh I.E. it will need a proper floor sized battery AND the trailer battery will need recharging at the same time as the towing vehicles battery… Hence decent, ubiquitous drive through charging. Range is annoying but it’s good to take a break every couple of hours when towing as I already do with my diesel, so for me anyway, it’s more about availability of practical chargers than absolute range. With the roof space available on top of a caravan you’d be able to squeeze maybe 200 or 300watts up there, and solar panels weight a reasonable amount, which affects the towing stability quite a lot having that much weight high up. Flexible ones or some sort of thin film would help the towing dynamics. Then of course many of us like to caravan off grid so we need our batteries to be fully charged once we reach our destination. Currently, decent solar can keep up with the simple demands of phone charging, lights, air circulation for the heating systems, etc. as long as we’re heating, cooking and running the fridge on gas. I guess what I’m trying to say is that aerodynamics are massively important and fairly simply addressed, so that should be phase 1. Electrical technology isn’t though, that requires bottom up re-design and even then basic physics limits what’s possible. The best demo of solar + aerodynamics is imo the Aptera car. So aerodynamic that the version covered in solar cells can charge itself up to ~30miles per day BUT only in California sun shine… my impression is that manufacturers are aware and the biggest global player is working on it; but it isn’t a very high tech industry so before they can do anything they also need to seriously upskill… Most firms are relatively small hence the ability to recruit R&D teams of the magnitude and skill levels that the auto makers have, is simply not going to happen… enjoying getting away from it all in my caravan whilst I can because it’s going to be a bumpy few years ahead when we’re all expected to transition!
There are many problems with Motorway Service (MSAs) and caravaning. Parking is only the tip of the iceburge. There is no one policy for all MSA's and ususlly they leave it up to the local manager to sort these problems out. So there's no consistency in the running of the parking areas on MSA's. Incidentally Cars with any type of tralier may use a Caravan Parking bay. so White vans with a Digger on a tralier can use a Caravan bay. simpley - it's a nightmare. To date, I have not seen a Caravan Parking Bay with an Electric vehicle charging point.
@@giorgosa my bet is on the main chassis manufacturer Alko, either on their own or collaborating with Thor industries, building a chassis with integrated battery (like a Tesla power wall but keeping the weight low which is essential for trailer stability (and actually would improve stability even relative to todays designs) and then selling that as a platform for the plethora of small caravan building firms to build off, meaning those caravan building firms don’t need their own battery, etc. R&D teams. Of course charging infrastructure remains key, you just can’t get enough solar onto the roof (even in places with decent solar radiation ie not the U.K.) to get enough charge back into the batteries at the rate it’s needed for driving and guarantee after a long drive that you still have enough power to power your mobile house. This is important as we’re all slowly heading away from gas usage too. Gradually large battery packs, inverters and induction hobs are replacing eg gas hobs. Heating is still an issue though as it’s so power hungry. Solar cell efficiency can only go so far though (look up things like the Shockley-Queisser limit) even with clever electronics like mppt controllers and micro inverters extracting every bit of power from a cell or panel ie we’re still limited by fundamental physics. Anyway, we (ie governments/intergovernmental organisations) need to proceed carefully thinking about whole lifecycle costs, carbon emissions, mineral extraction issues, etc. Diesel bad/EV good is far too simplistic and will just lead to other deleterious issues! It’s a subject of great interest for me so I’m attentively following :)
@@BusyElf completely agree, we’re just not important; it’s a nightmare during the summer holidays! Don’t mind anyone with a trailer using it of course, they need more space, it’s the masses of ordinary cars that just treat it as an overflow if the main car park looks even a tad busy or they happen to drive through the caravan spots 1st so just stop there that really riles me! Compounded by usually local management doing absolutely zero about it. The amount of times I’ve turned up with my 4.5tonne combo and a small person in the back seat needing the loo, but not been able to stop due to solo cars parked there is really annoying. I’m building a library of service stations drive through a on my channel to hopefully help other caravaners/motorhomers out. My theory is that we spend far less than car drivers especially when divided by the size parking space we need and service station providers are running it as a purely money making venture, NOT the providing rest stops for safety which happen to have shops, approach that is taken in other parts of the world. It’s just mindset imo.
Dire range impact aside, the charging stress and faff required instantly discounts it for me as a caravanner. It is a disappointing but predictable result, makes it difficult knowing where to put your money on next car. I’m finding it hard to look past honking big diesels with any confidence. Really good test, thanks Ped. A brave topic to take on given your usual focus. I can confirm It is possible to still love driving, love cars, motorbikes and own a caravan.
EV should never have left the city confines it is most suited to regarding range issues and environmental impact. Odd that politicians and governments occupy city environments most of their day. It does rather question both EV’s and the tunnel vision mentality of governments.
Interesting video, I wondered about the towing as well, so it looks like it cuts the travel distance by about 50%, another issue I wondered about is how do you charge a motorhome, you've still got length but you can't unhitch it and the parking at charge points is not long enough, you'd be outside the marked area and risk getting a fine? There has been very little thought put into the EV charging as they seem to only be designed for cars yet they want vans , buses and lorries to be EV as well.
the rush to put in ev charging points clearly has not been thought through properly, the beemer and caravan is a monster combo but again doesn't work, the thought of going along slow rural roads with limited range will be a no, no for most. can you imagine the chaos in summers when the caravaners are queueing for charging points? i'll stick with my x6 thanks. enjoyed the vid again ped.
There are quite a few people that pull caravan trailers with an EV. My experience is with an Tesla MX100D and a Hobby 560 (2.3 m wide, single axle) with a trailer weight of about 1.600 kg. I have tracked a journey of a round-trip from about Ingolstadt (Germany ) and South Tirol (Italy) of a total length of 897 km. The result was an average of about 332 Wh/km or 1.9 mi/kWh. The reasons for lower consumption: - smaller caravan, especially width only 7.7 ft - single axle - speed on motorways only about 50 mph - better aerodynamics of car and trailer Regarding charging we had the same problem and had to unhitch the trailer. This was the main reason why we changed the MX100D to a PHEV. We did a similar journey with the PHEV and was much more convenient. And locally we could then drive fully electric. If you want to use an EV for towing a caravan I recommend to limit the size of the trailer and don't drive to fast. Then you can stay at about 1.5 the consumption of the car. Be careful when driving steep hills like the Alps. But the best compromise for me is an PHEV with an electric range of 50 miles at least.
Hi Pedro, just an update really. I completed the caravan holiday to Cornwall from Stoke on Trent. Left home in the i4, pulling an elddis 574 at 3am on Sunday 23rd July, with 100%. I set the cruise at 60 and jumped onto the M6 at Stoke on Trent. 1st stop, at Gloucester services. We rolled in with 13%, after averaging 1.5 m/kWh. Gloucester only has 50kW chargers, so I left the caravan at Gloucester, and drove 5 miles down the road to a Costa, with 2 Instavolts. Although they were 120kW, I only pulled 87kW. Sat there for over an hour, and got back up to 97%. Then I had to drive up the M5 to the junction above Gloucester services, then double back to the services to get the caravan, wife and daughter. That hogged some of my range. Next stop was Collumpton, near Exeter. 6 x 350kW chargers there. I rolled in with only 3%. Squeaky bum time. The car pulled 184kW, and by the time we’d had breakfast and a toilet break, the car was at 100%. Don’t worry, we didn’t keep anyone waiting. Next stop was Penhale, just a bit further down the A30 from Cornwall services. We chose Penhale, as there were 2 shell recharge chargers, and a shopping village. We rolled in with 8%, and we had to wait 10 mins to get onto a charger, but once on, we mooched in the shops for about 30 mins, and the car was back to 80%. This was plenty to get us to St Ives. Bear in mind that at each stop, I had to un-hitch and then hitch the caravan, as none of them were pull-through. All in all, not a bad trip, apart from the messing about at Gloucester. Also, I noticed, after the Gloucester Instavolt charge, I found a BP Pulse, a bit closer, but it wasn’t showing in the car nav. If all services had at least 6 x 350kW chargers, it would have been a doddle. There would be no squeaky bums, as we could go to any services, and get a really fast charge. Alas, this is not yet the case. The car was a beasty, towing, but only averaged 1.5 m/kWh, which is disappointing, as I was set at 60 all the way. I couldn’t have driven any more efficiently. Andrew Ditton on TH-cam, managed 2m/kWh pulling a larger van than mine, with an EV6. All I can think is, he didn’t have it loaded up like mine, and there was only him and the dogs in the car. He said he didn't use the cruise, as it munches through the battery, but I find it's more efficient than a clunky human on the pedal. So, in conclusion, yes it was disappointing at 1.5 m/kWh, but at 60 mph, and 3 rest stops, fairly relaxing too. I now know it's possible to tow a caravan a good distance in the UK, without too much fuss.
![It's now cheaper to run a Diesel than an EV ! [Must know numbers for EV ownership]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JR-xt3XlImw/mqdefault.jpg)
![It's now cheaper to run a Diesel than an EV ! [Must know numbers for EV ownership]](/img/tr.png)
A good and practical, real world test. All that was missing was some really good hills like those in the Welsh mountains, Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and the Scottish highlands.
NO, No hills allowed, a hill would kill the batteries in no time
And don't forget all those road works where you sit for hours, with your headlights on , radio , listening to traffic advice , sat-nav trying to find the nearest available charging point etc etc. I expect you will soon be hearing about all those people who have needed rescuing from the middle of towns, moors, and the bottom of hills. DIESEL FOR EVER Stu
@@wennysmile1605 You can sit in a snow drift in a Tesla for roughly 100 hours before you die of the cold
This possible apparent ‘random’ is oh so VERY relevant, as where do people tend to take their caravans? To the fens of Lincolnshire or Wales? A VERY well-made point
@@toucan221 Uphill kills batteries, downhill recharges them.
The other problem is that when you have a claimed 50-60 miles of range left ( often false ) I guarantee you will start to get massive range anxiety and start to stress about finding a charger that hopefully works.
Should have had towing mirrors
I suggest you go back and watch the video again to see towing mirrors attached and described at 16:15@@bobtracey7360
Should have bought a Tesla - then the chargers will be ones that work.
And battery degradiation letting charge get too low.
@@bobtracey7360look again, they were fitted
A great real world test, I tow a 24 foot 3.2 ton semi off road caravan in Western Australia with a Toyota 200 series V8 diesel 4WD. With the mainly long distances between towns here it would take me weeks to some of the distances I cover in a day with my Toyota. I would spend more time charging the vehicle than my time driving.🤣🤣
❤❤❤ true from Australia 😅
Yeah- and what'll happen getting stuck in traffic going up the range?!
Imagine the family jumping in and experiencing the trip from Perth to Mitchell Falls and through to Kununurra, then back home. The extended stays at communities along the way would be an amazing interaction with the huge amount of gensets required for the 3 month tourism season. Everyone would be petrified of knowing by Geraldton that their right of passage was over, and they couldn't finish the trip.
Maybe people will wake soon to the total impracticality of it all and understand where the present government is heading with this palaver they are dishing out to us.
Exactly what they want, no one will go anywhere. Only the elite can travel.
Maybe someone should explain this crap to Bowen because he is pushing us like a freight train in this direction. Look EV's are great for inner city suburbs or just running around to the shops, work, schools etc but Australia is a bloody big place and EV's are just not practical for many of us that travel big distances, especially with trailers.
I love these UK videos because you guys alway tackle the questions other content creators avoid.
That was a $200,000 suv / trailer combo. The insurance cost terrifies me. Well done, but it would not be
My choice for a relaxing vacation.
Yep you could buy a 20k second hand car and go on loads of really nice holidays all around the world for that money
Alway. PMSL
I'd need to take out a mortgage for that combo - only for the wealthy. I do like that Caravan though 👍
I cannot think of anything that would spoil a nice drive more than towing
I couldn’t think of a situation where I would be happy losing 1/3 of my range the day of a journey just because it was cold outside. My full tank on the freeway will take me ~600km regardless of the outside temperature.
Actually it wont. ICE looses MPG in cold. And you dont drive 400KM on a daily basis.
@@silvy7394people do not buy cars only to suit the shortest distance they drive. People buy vehicles to cover all their driving requirements, it makes no sense to do anything else ?
@@stevezodiac491 yeah that is the reality of it, but what would probably be the most rational thing to do is to have a car that can do all the things you do regularly with an ease, but only needs to be capable of doing really occasional stuff, but it does not by any means need to be the best / excel at it. All but the shortest range new ev-s have a range big enough to cover all but road trips for most people. And for road trips it is not like you can't do it, it just takes more time than a gas / diesel car
@@kosiranzehow about you let people decide for themselves what they need and want
@@silvy7394yeah, but no where near as much as a battery powered car, an diesel engine will loose range! A diesel would loose from 760 km in summer to about to about 670-690 km in winter per 50 litre of diesel..how much will an ELV will decrease it's autonomy in winter?
As a caravanner here in Australia, an EV will NEVER work on current offerings. I am not surprised at all that towing halves the range. Great vid.
Hey what about a battery assist slung under the trailer at another 2 tons. New book required. EV touring for Dummies🤣🤣🤣🤣
I am curious how towing affects your petrol economy .... but I agree as far as towing distances ... EV's are useless
@@LevyHappyClapper Our Kia diesel, towing a 1400kg caravan does around 300 miles towing, maybe 550 not towing, so a similar drop. We are swapping to a Tesla Model Y and a 1500kg caravan. I Can't wait, as it will be a far better car for every other day that we are not towing and more spacious.
@@IslaSprollie Right? It's not like ICE vehicles don't have the same problem. It costs a certain amount of extra energy to tow a caravan, so an ICE vehicle will show a similar drop in range. I'm not surprised that you went from 550 to 300.
@@zakzwijn8410you're right, the drop in efficiency is tangible on both parts, but currently ice cars still have more range, the drop in distance, percentage wise, isn't much different, but an ice car is still better for very long distances.
However, in probably the not too distant future, ev batteries will improve, there's already new tech out there now improving battery stability that could mean higher or better power storage, increasing range and efficient temperature efficiency.
Easy ethos for this: technology changes all the time, but opinions stay the same until it happens.
Peoples knowledge is different: knowledge can think further than modern technology if you think outside the box.
Opinions won't change until they do.
The anxiety level I experienced from just watching your video was unbelievable. I thought the anxiety level I normally experience from being married to two different women in two different cities was bad but after watching your video I don’t think I’ll be buying an EV anytime soon….
Two wives in two cities sounds extremely stressful 😮
@@no1mongrel Actually I’m Catholic… In my church I would be referred to as a “Fallen Angel”… There was once a TV series called “On The Road With Charle’s Kuralt” back in the 1980tys… Only after he died it was discovered that he had two families, one living in Wyoming and one living in New York city… Each to his own
@@keithkennedy2725 or in that case: each to both their own...
Mate with two wives in two different cities you can’t afford an EV lol
I literally have your same problem
Thanks for bringing real-world experience to EV fantasy
The main issue with EVs is that they take ages to charge, the chargers are often broken and they are sited so as to make charging a towing vehicle impractical. In effect, this thing had a range of 100 miles before the search started for a charge point and at least a 30 minute charge time, longer if you want a full charge.
Batteries discharge exponentially. When full, the first 20% of capacity give you a big chunk of range. Thereafter, the power level drops faster and faster. The 30 minute 80% charge claim looks great on paper, but the reality is that the real range is probably nearer 60%. This would mean a 30 minute stop every 2 hours maximum. That route was pretty flat. The range would have been even worse in hilly country on single carriageways and charging points presumably even rarer.
If the battery does die, you are well and truly stuffed. You cannot buy 5 litres of electricity and pour it in. The car has to be recovered, at great cost, charged and brought back to collect the caravan which might well have incurred additional costs.
For pottering around town, EVs are fine. As a replacement for petrol or diesel, they are a pipe dream if any serious load carrying, towing or long range driving is required.
Unfortunately as per usual people don't respect what other people require and jus see things through their own perspective (I'm alright jack). Yet if you have had to rely on public charging completely I'm sure a lot of these EV drivers would not have bothered.
Yep your correct the first chunk of miles from 100% is much better than the 50% to empty capacity
Does the mileage get better the further you go? The car gets lighter because you are not burdened carrying electrons around.
At the service station and removing the caravan, finding a charger that fits, waiting for it to be available, then charging it, reattaching the caravan and heading for the exit you notice the available fill up positions at the fuel pumps which had the car been diesel/petrol would have allowed a 5 min topup.
The power curve of lithium batteries doesn’t follow your method - you’re referencing ni-cd/ni-mh chemistry batteries.
You can use them linearly from 100-20%, after that there can be variables at play.
I otherwise agree with your post.
As a caravaner I have been giving this issue some thought on what is the way forward for myself. My wife and I thoroughly enjoy using the caravan. Our holiday in 2022 involved a 1200 mile round trip from Aberdeen to Salisbury with a few stops in between. How could we do that with an EV. You would need 2 months. The only saving grace for us is that I will be 62 this year and therefore if I buy a new diesel (Currently XC60) in 2029 I will be 68 and hopefully the new car will be operational long enough to take me to the time when I should'nt be towing a caravan. The quandry is when to buy the new car as the prices are bound to soar the nearer to the 2030 deadline and also what is going to happen to the price of fuel. Aligned to this is the problem of which manufacturers will be producing diesel or petrol cars in 2029. I doubt that Volvo will be. Without major changes or new thoughts, the touring caravan holidays may become something destined to the history books.
Your going to be an ideal candidate for one of the bigger plug-in hybrids, I guess. You can do local trips electrically charging at home and then use the petrol for the longer journeys. It also means you don't have to learn all the charging protocols..
I'm the same age as you, I've just moved to an electric car, and, whatever the fanbois say, it really can be quite tricky. I've installed about 15 apps on my phone specific to charging. In fact, I had to replace the phone along the way.
@@ecoworrier - you omitted the ridiculous cost of buying an EV in the first place (currently cost prohibitive to most), and then theres the extortionate cost of electric charging (and that's assuming it charges fast enough/kwH and isn't unserviceable or someone has decided to long term loan the copper cabling within). EV and caravan ownership is very far from smelling of roses. Shall we mention how long you need to run an EV before it becomes carbon neutral, or the unrecyclable battery pack or the slave labour in the DRC digging out the cobalt etc. Look at Geoff buy's cars' video on the topic.
@@dazzle52k52 Yes the charging infrastructure in the UK needs improving, which it is doing, just slowly at the moment. And yes, EVs are expensive, but then so are big diesel SUVs. With regards to how long you have to run an EV before it becomes carbon neutral, it's just a few years (I believe I've heard 3 and 7, so it may depend on the report and how they tallied things up - they don't always factor in the carbon used in transporting, processing/refining, and transporting the gas you burn!). And many car battery manufacturers don't buy from the DRC for exactly this reason.
Something else to keep in mind wrt to the range in this video, cold weather does lower the battery's range, so there'd be an improvement if he did this in the summer. Driving 70 mph also really impacts the range. Sticking to 50 mph apparently helps a great deal (he does stick to 60 mph in the video, so this is mostly a general comment).
@@crowfoot1199 sorry but EVs look less and less practical as time moves on, not more. If he was alone he couldn't even go to the toilet, let alone charge his car.... ridiculous. I towed a four berth using my mates old Renault Traffic from Oxford to Bristol to St Austell and hardly knew it was on the back. EVs are the wrong technology, too much infrastructure needed, too expensive and no cleaner than ICE. Now with hybrids I can see a case, but even they'll have to be cheaper and cleaner to manufacture.
@@dazzle52k52 how long do you need to drive a diesel car before it becomes carbon neutral?
You were also in the flat-lands of the south of England.
What will happen in the hilly-lands of the scenic north of Scotland.
I also wanted to see you reverse park the caravan back to where you picked it up.!
It was a good test, but as you said it wasn't too surprising.
Keep up the good work.
Caravans are going to get real cheap if we let the dictatorship we call a government force us down the impractical and downright dangerous path of EVs. This is just scam, their real goal is either to kill or to lock us all into a 15 minute neighbourhood where you will stay eating only bugs, until they determine it your turn to go below ground.
Enjoyed the video. Here in Oz the average touring caravan is 2.5 to 3+ ton, EVs are just not a practical tow vehicle (yet?).The average distances in Australia are also problematic along with the lack of charging stations once you are out of the cities. If you travel a well serviced route, say Sydney to Melbourne you will have to unhitch to charge every time.
Ditto, Peter. I'm also a Wizard in Oz and have a 2.7 tonne (ATM) caravan. It's a fully off-road unit, and I need that for where we will take it. The idea of having an EV to tow a caravan is ludicrous in this country. With that sort of range (let's say 240kms if I add on the predicted "50 miles" left) it would get me from Brisbane to just passed Dalby (if I go west), and there is a steep range to traverse on that path as well. To do the distances we do in Oz...it really is a wing, a prayer and RANGE ANXIETY at 200%.
Brisbane - Rockhampton is 644kms; to Townsville is 1360kms; to Cairns is 1700kms. And that's up the east coast where the ought to be charging stations. Fortunately, my Toyota Fortuner gives me about 15 litres per 100kms towing, so that is no sweat when I have a diesel range of 500kms with one ten-minute refill at the servo...and a coffee and a pie and a visit to the bathroom.
When it comes to EVs in the Land DownUnder: to quote the famous Aussie movie, "The Castle"..."Tell him he's dreaming!"
Ditto, ditto. Another Aussie here. We're on the road full time atm, and loving it. We couldn't even consider doing the same with an electric car based on these results. Our 2.5 tonne van would flatten the battery in no time at all. And recharging would be impractical in many ways. If they legislated all cars to be electric, caravans would essentially be forced off the roads.
Yet another Aussie with my dollars worth. I'd have to agree that even with a lighter camper or not towing at all you would be very limited in where you can go outside the urban areas due to lack of charging infrastructure and that's not likely to change any time soon, mainly because of the lack of infrastructure to supply the required electricity at roadhouses or small town that are not on the major grids. The offset is that Australia is so urbanised and so many journeys are within urban areas that electric vehicles are highly practical and here in Perth there are a lot. We like to travel and have two cars so the optimal solution for us is a medium 4wd (tow rating is 3.1 tonnes but our camper is 1.5 all up) and an electric for the town trips. Shame we don't have the money for a new electric. There is no financial incentive to help us out so we are compromising and looking at a hybrid and keeping the 4wd for the remote trips. And before anyone complains about 'gas guzzler' the 4wd gives us 8km per litre not towing, and 11 to 12 towing. That's not bad for a car that weighs in at over 2 tonnes.
@@johnsaunders8315 100% as another Aussie in agreement here You can have your EV's and drive around the ACT with all the politicians pushing this BS up their RS
ausie. s.a., why,, for fk sake, why,,would you even consider an ev.. you obviously have never looked into where the raw materials come from, there not re cycleable, they cost more, there a bs scam.. LPG. can run any vehicle, clean.. my bronco, 82, runs on lpg only, 12.1 comp, as it is slow burning so needs high compression, bit tech for you id say.. 15 yrs, no probs.. maybe this, is why they are getting rid of lpg fill stations, so your forced to buy a fkn bs ev.. bronco is fast & scary, std engine, just high comp.. 360 ks to 90 lt.. i save the environment,,you dont,, fact.. i dont need bs, egr, def, cats, nothing.. or an ev station, powered by a diesel geni.. theres a vid of a guy in u.s., ran out of pixi,s [ electricity ], guy pulled over to help,, helped him get the geni started so he could carry on his journey, in the boot.... ausie slang....... fk that......
Evening Pete, Interesting stuff for the Caravan Owners amongst your followers. My prediction was around 50%, but the actual was even worse no surprises though when you have a 'total weight' of 4.2 Tonnes. Just shows how far EV motoring has to go before it equals the Petrol/ Diesel Equivalent in my opinion.
In what world is 1.4m/kWh -v- 2.8m/kWh **not** 50% ????
It is EXACTLY 50%.
BTW, 50% is the the average loss of MPG that diesel or petrol cars suffer when towing.
@@terryjimfletcher It didn't drop by 50% - It doubled so 100% worse!
@@dudeonart8492think you need to learn math
In the real world, was the caravan loaded to it max, was the car loaded as it would be going on a holiday. !!
@@terryjimfletcher I’ve been around caravans for a lot of years, 50+, and never known any tow car to be 50% of its solo mpg when towing, maybe 30-35% loss but never known worse than that.
To be honest the range impact on a teaditional car (SUV) is also isgnificant. We have an Audi Q7 (3L V6 pertrol) and its normal consumerption is 23 miles per US gallon. A couple of years ago we towed a 23 ft caravann (trailer in the US) from Orlando(Florida) to Frisco (Colorado) and back via Santa Fe (New Mexico) and the aaverage for the trip was 12 miles per US gallon. It was about half range per tank meaning that you have to tank up a lot more. and therefore the issue again is not range but how easy is it to charge vs fill up with petrol.
Mike - another real world comparison, thanks for explaining to the EV naysayers that physics is physics, nothing to do with the "fuel" used to pull the van.
My old Discovery diesel was 28mpg solo (imperial) 26mpg towing a caravan.
@@terryjimfletcher I don't think anyone thought that - naysayers or otherwise - that the physics differs. The 2 problems are the range of a "fill" and the ability to "re-fill". Those things are to do with the "fuel" used.
@@terryjimfletcher Even if DV (Diesel Vehicle) uses twice as much towing (not what i've experienced), I can easily throw a couple of jerry cans or change my fuel tank to a long range version. In Australia some of the distances between service stations far exceed the Towing range of EVs on some of the popular caravan destinations (at the moment). DC charging in AUS is the pits. I guess the point is EVs are great, just not so much for heavy towing range. But let's see what the future brings.
Would love my DV to have that torque, Would love my EV to have that range.
A diesel would have been somewhat better mate , and to be fair , a 3.0 litre v6 is going to be working harder than something with a bigger lazy engine in a petrol car..
I love towing with my EV. So much nicer than a petrol or diesel due to all that instant low down torque and no gears. But having to unhitch to charge up on longer journeys is a pain. Also, you do realise that the fuel efficiency reduction is the same wether it's electric, petrol or diesel?
Thank goodness for sense! Efficiency reduction is plain physics, nothing to do with propulsion (EV or ICE)
Hi Mate. Yes I know an ICE car would take a similar hit but is much easier to fill back up and be on your way if you need to go on a longer journey 👍
What a surprise! My last petrol tow car did 40mpg solo and 20mpg towing. Half. My current EV Ioniq 6 does 4.5 mpkw solo and 2.4 towing. Half. When attaching the caravan the car resets the range from 320 to 160. I can safely tow for 100 miles with plenty of range to spare.. There are many charging hubs around with multiple chargers and room to unhook the caravan close by. Zap maps make planning this breeze. It’s really no hassle. It takes 15 to 20 mins while I eat some lunch to add another 100 miles range. That said most of my touring is within 100miles of home so I can just seek out a handy charger solo the following day.
Excellent example. These results are consistent with those of other manufacturers and weights, many are worse. Now, add the cold weather and mountains that we have here in Canada and the range becomes almost useless for towing or for hauling anything. And the availability of charging stations is much worse than you've encountered also. EV may be great for back and forth to office and home every night but it does not lend itself to travel.
Then don't tow such a large pile of garbage. Materialist.
Wouldn't it be better to go around with a horse and carriage like the Gypsies always have!?!?! 🤣🤣🤣
Good luck trying this in mountain country... or in cold weather..!
@@dougheck1522 Ever tried starting an ICE car at -35?
@@nathansmith7153 yes. Was stationed in Manitoba in the 70's. Ever look at what -35 does to a Lithium battery.? i can send you factory charts... You would be walking...lol
Another great video and thank you for this. I am a caravanner, I tow a 1800kg twin axle, I get around 20-21mpg when towing so half my usual consumption so this doesn’t surprise me, but the charging situation when towing is enough to put me off getting an electric tow car any time soon.
I think towing a caravan behind an electric car is ideal. In fact all electric cars should come with a caravan as standard. I mean, given how long you have to wait in the middle of nowhere to charge every time, it's good to have the caravan with you.
Exactly right. The video doesn't say anything we don't know already. It's just practically showing the relationship in physics between energy and work. As you rightly show that relationship is the same for electric vehicles as it is for petrol vehicles. You could have equally towed a large caravan with a petrol powered car and be equally "shocked"!!
@@marviwilson1853 The "shocked" in the title is purely and exclusively for click baiting.
@@nomayor1 Fully agree but I think the use of this word in this video has another dimension - textbook stuff from the disgruntled petrol heads who are being forced to ditch their beloved V8's and seek retribution with ambiguous and even misleading claims against the electric car revolution.
@@marviwilson1853 What he is trying to show mainly is the practicallity of charging, we all know that towing means less miles per gallon but if it is petrol you would be able to pull up to the petrol pump and fill up, rather than having to unhook the van and leave it somewhere.
Pete, Imagine what chaos you would cause trying to charge a car + caravan combination in a town or city.
As an ex-caravanner I noticed that he did not check the nose weight of the caravan to ensure that it was less than the maximum tow-hook weight specification (normally 100kg), I used to set mine to about 80-90kg. If you don't adhere to this guide then you are likely to suffer from increased amounts of sway/wobble (with potentially catastrophic consequences to you, your caravan, and other roadusers.)
Nose wieghts depend on the towing vehicle. Some can take more than others. Check the handbook before towing.
Too little weight on the hitch is also likely to give rise to very serious stability issues. There are some interesting TH-cam videos of this effect if you search for them.
Tow ball weight on the tow vehicle, is in the "vicinity" of between 10%-15% of the aggregate weight of what you are towing. The other thing to consider is, the maximum weight the tow bar can carry and the maximum weight the vehicle can "legally tow".
It's only a 35 minutes video. He would have had to miss some stuff out.
It was probably all done by caravan dealer off camera. Like mentioned it's a short basic video. Theres some picky people around with stupid comments (mikmat)
You are the first person I have watched who has pointed out the need to unhitch a trailer to charge the tow car. This situation is clearly farcical. We'll done that man. Regeneration will be reduced because the caravans own brakes will soak up some of the potential energy. Thank you for a interesting vlog.
Cheers 👍
Check out Andrew Ditton. He’s been doing it for a while with an EV6.
Excellent point re loss of regeneration. That hadn't crossed my mind!
@@Smith_Tech_70 yeah towing a shoe box around his garden, not the much bigger vans he USED to tow all over Europe with his big diesel…😂😂😂
good point re the caravan's own brakes. I see a need to have an electric motor in the caravan just for regen braking.
Great video, and answered the question that most caravaners have worried and complained about. Firstly, the range of E.V's has improved substantially over the past 3 or 4 years, but the situation of trying to charge en route still has not been answered. Until we have chargers in lanes where the coaches and lorries park, so that it's not necessary to unhitch the caravan, we caravaners will still be driving diesel suv's by necessity. That is an unavoidable situation currently. I used to have a Volkswagen E-Golf and I loved it as a car, because it's a Golf, but I only kept it 5 months, because of range anxiety. In winter it would only have about 100 mile range, and if you put the heating on, it was reduced still further, same in summer with the air con on. I've have now gone back to a petrol Golf, because of that. No sane caravanner is going to unhitch in a services to charge their E.V separately and leave a caravan on it's own in a bay.Imagine if it's throwing it down! There is an awful long way to go before we can all drive around towing caravans with E.V's. Fact.
We tow with an EV and have frequently unhitched to charge. It’s no big deal, taking a few extra mins at either end of the stop. Definitely worth the hassle to be able to drive an EV.
@@tdrees No. No it's not. You may be a masochist, but that's a niche proclivity.
@@tdrees is that a a couple of minutes either end of your four hour stop to charge up😂😂😂
@@leecromer3289 more like 30-40 mins, but hey. It’s a funny story!👍🤣
@Toby Rees 40 mins, only if using a fast charger, do that too often and you'll be needing a new battery. Sadly this whole ev idea has not been properly thought through. As great as they are to drive they are simply not practical for many drivers.
Great video Pete. Imagine if you had a family of fours gear for a two week holiday in the van and boot the range would be decimated. Hours wasted at the services multiple times. You would have to set of two days early to make sure you get to your destination on time 🤣. I’ll stick to my diesel.
👍
I will stick to your dad. Well, I will make his colon sticky to be more accurate but yeah.
Safe to say regularly towing caravans is not an EV's forte!
For example if you tow a caravan for two trips a year that is a small amount of extra time over the year but you get all the benefits when you are not towing.
When does it become a big enough issue that a diesel is better than an EV over the course of a whole year?
@@Jamessansome can you explain how your EV is environmentally friendly and above all ethical ?
@@supersurfer1 Driving anything is not environmentally friendly. If you want to be environmentally friendly you would walk everywhere. The next most efficient form of transport would be bicycle as minimal materials are used and little CO2 is created during manufacture for the distances you can travel over the lifetime of the bike.
Towing a caravan is not an environmentally friendly thing to do whatever vehicle you tow with. Towing a vehicle with a diesel is most practical but it is also the least environmentally friendly way to do it due to emissions.
The burning of fossil fuels is the main contributor to climate change. The historic and current actions of the fossil fuel industry have been immoral since the 1950's when the big oil companies did their own research into climate change, found out that burning fossil fuels harms everyone on the planet then carried on regardless for the £££££.
Then there is obviously all of the fossil fuel related wars, disasters, oil spills etc some of which were entirely preventable that completely annihilate all organisms within hundreds of miles such as:
Persian Gulf War
BP's Deep water Horizon
Ixtoc 1
Atlantic Express
Mingbulak Fergana Valley
Kolva River
Nowruz Oil Field
Castillo de Bellver
Amoco Cadiz
+ many more.
There are also the various historic and current wars killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people in history that have been triggered entirely or in part due to oil and fossil fuel resources.
Having said all that I think what you are eluding to is lithium mines which have also created conflict primarily due to the high use of water. Yes there was and still are ethical issues in some regions where there are lithium mines. It started with the need to power laptops, then phones, tablets and all the other rechargeable electronics we all use and most recently the need for car batteries which has made the quantity required much much higher. Fortunately steps are being made to make lithium production more ethical such as different forms of extracting lithium without the need to use so much water and also different battery chemistries e.g. Iron Phosphate and others that use a fraction or no lithium at all.
Cobalts another issue and is also used during the oil refining process.
Long and short of it is that oil and gas extraction and the burning of fossil fuels is much worse for the environment and has had and still has more of an effect on humans than wind turbines, solar panels and lithium mining.
Hear in Australia . How many time would I need to recharge and how long will a recharge take. To drive between Melbourne and Sydney both with caravan and without caravan. In a petrol car it is 8 hr 55 min (877.7 km) via M31 and National Highway M31 with one say 10 minute re fuel? How many recharges, How long will each recharge take? In England aprox the same as Glenco to London city Airport.
I’ve been towing similar caravans for 14 years with a Ford S-max (420 NM). I’m not surprised by your results. I’m burning almost twice the amount of diesel, almost all the time when towing.
Interesting. For comparison, with a 2.0L petrol Avensis a few years back, fuel usage increased by about 60% when towing a caravan. Since it's a lower car I would expect the relative difference to be larger if the cause was mostly due to aerodynamics, but it seems there must be other factors that are more significant. Could it be that higher torque also translates to higher (relative) penalty of fuel economy?
@@benhetland576 My BMW 535d tows a 1700kg twin axle at 27-28mpg for which I normally get 42mpg with cruise. 550 range to 350 range roughly. Inclines with the extra weight I think are the biggest factor as I can steady state on level ground at low to mid-30s
@benhetland576 tip: drive the same speed with and without a tow trailer. There is 100% diference.
This video is a surprise for people who don't understand that air resistance increases with the square of the speed. For a petrol car. For BEV. Primary school.
I would never buy a car like this to tow a trailer long distances.
I am an Australian caravaner and I tow a 2.1 ton caravan with a Toyota FJ Cruiser. Our distances in Australia are humungous so towing with an EV is not even a possibility, snowballs chance in hell that it would work. FYI our caravans are a lot heavier over here a 26 ft would be over3 tons.😎📷🇦🇺
Yours are built for unpaved roads. Caravans in the uk are unbelievably light.
Yeah European ans American caravans are also completely different.
Yep we build stuff tough in Australia. My 18 ft Jayco Outback has independent suspension and a 6 inch chassis it’s ATM weight is a touch over 2.1 tons. Tows like a charm. 🇦🇺📷😎
As a comparison. I have towed with a 2 litre diesel 4wd many thousands of miles with trailers from 1.5t to 2 t and not very aerodynamic ones. My mpg goes from about 44 solo to 30 when towing although I go a little faster. So ICE drops 30 % and it appears EV 50%. Wait till you take one in the mountains.
But in the mountains, your diesel won't put diesel back into the tank going downhill, but an ev will.
I’d like to add a gas vehicle to the comparison. 5.7 liter Toyota tundra. 19mph empty. 9.8 while towing 8k lbs. approx 50% loss
I am also wondering just how easy it would be to get back to the chargers once you have dropped the caravan off at the trailer park at the services. I think in a lot of service stations the trailer park is in a separate part of the services and you may find yourself having to go back against the flow of traffic to get the car back to the section with the chargers. Seeing how many EV's have a very poor range when towing, it's about time chargers were placed in the trailer and car areas of services.
I got a better idea. How about nobody buy these and we the people decide what we'd like, not a govt. panel of so-called self annointed "experts" that are really paid to lie to us.
This like their climate change hobgoblin is all a scam to control people.
Very interesting video. Firstly I would like to agree, the team at Chichester Caravans are superb! The range results don’t surprise me as much as I thought they would, we tow with a petrol Audi A4. In everyday driving we get around 42mpg, when towing that drops to around 19mpg, so in many ways the EV was more efficient at towing. As others have said, it isn’t so much the range that is the issue, but the charging infrastructure; the lack of it and that it is not designed with caravaners (or caravanists 😉) in mind! Like you my results are not in the slightest scientific haha. Thanks for the really interesting video!
You should only use diesel for towing. Look it up. Diesel gives you far better performance due to torque. It’s all to do with combustion, too detailed for me to explain but you will find the fuel efficiency hardly drops with a diesel car towing a caravan
@@jonneym Sorry mate but that is blatantly false yes diesels engines are superior for towing but they still have a significant increase of fuel consumption when towing. I own multiple diesels utes in our business and the fuel consumption with a van of this size would increase significantly.
@@timveitch6579 I used to have a Mercedes 350cdi it had a 3 litre engine and would do 45 mpg at 60mph and would still do 40mpg driving across Germany at 95mph
Diesel cars have superior efficiency over petrol but we are all going to die from pollution like our forefathers who somehow are living longer than ever
Besides the lack of infrastructure my issue is the time required to charge the battery to 80 percent. I fill the tank in 3 to 4 minutes.
@timveitch. Towed a caravan for many years, always with a diesel car and never did I experience 50% loss in range or anything like it. More like 20% if that.
A lot of charging stations on the continent are moving towards a drive-through design more like a petrol station layout. I think ours need to look like that too before it becomes practical to tow a caravan long distances.
And they have signage way before telling you of how many chargers there are available, we're so far behind in the UK.
They sure do 👍
Yes , also more handy for Ev-vans and Ev-trucks. Some New stations in Belgium also have this “drive-thru” design
Hopefully there will be a U-turn on the 2030 eco BS.
EV's will never be good enough to replace a petrol or diesel engine vehicle.
@@sahhull EVs are great and already better than ICE for most purposes. I own and run both.
Postponing the 2030 date would just disincentivise the companies installing the charging infrastructure so be completely counterproductive.
Great video as always. I tow a caravan with a diesel tow car. The caravan is 1.8 tons max weight and the car has a 70 litre tank. To give you a comparison against your findings, I travelled down from Durham to Royston (about 220 miles) and when I arrived I still had just over a quarter of a tank left. What I did find on the journey down was that when I tried to stop at two service areas, the parking was completely full so there was no option to stop. It would have been a show stopper with an EV. Another factor is that when I had arrived at Durham ( on way down from Scotland) and pitched the caravan, I popped out to the local Shell station and filled up the car. The process of driving to the petrol station, filling up and getting back to the caravan took 15 minutes. I really like the concept of the EV but I think we are years away from them replacing diesel and petrol cars.
Shame the government doesnt realise that.
The above EV has the usable battery capacity of 105kWh that is the same as 10 litres of diesel in energy.
It used 67kWh to tow for 59 miles that is 42 mpg efficiency.
I am in South Australia, and tow a 2500kg caravan with a Mitsubishi Pajero (Shogun in the UK). Normal diesel usage (no load) is 9-10 litres per 100 klms. Towing is 16-18 litres per 100 kgs. It seems to me that the performance is not that dissimilar , but the range is greater on diesel. Still best bang for buck is diesel. Eventually the battery will be improved, or hydrogen vehicles will become available for Caravan towing, or the Governments will ban anyone owning caravans (and that may be no joke!!!!)
Let’s be honest an ev is not designed to tow a caravan. Think of all the people will be out of work by introducing these crazy vehicles
Australia long distances and lack of accommodation in remote unpopulated Australia ( that's most of Australia 🇦🇺).
Electric vehicle makers have to go a long way to convince Australians towing a caravan with air conditioning on ( because of the heat) that the nearest charging stations is 200 miles (over 300km) down the road and will they make it ?
EVs just are not selling in regional, rural and remote Australia.
I wonder why?!!!.....😂
After towing a 1 tonne army trailer from Swindon to Bangor, I averaged 27mph. Without trailer it's ~32mpg. This was in a Discovery 3 with 5 people on board. And of course the Discovery self levels. Do remember that the Disco has the aerodynamics of a brick! But, you hardly notice you are towing ;)
Yeah, but you're throwing away 2/3 of the energy in the fuel in waste heat. It's only because you can have virtually unlimited energy in your tank that this works. 32mpg without a trailer is frankly appalling.
How big / tall / wide was it? If it had a frontal area no bigger than the Disco you're not really adding much load. Once up to speed, aero is far, far more important than weight.
@@rogerfroud300 and so is 2.8 miles/kWh!!
I agree with your mpg's get the same with my disco and car trailer.
and if needed put more DERV in 5 mins and your on your way
26:33(ish) One of the things that will pull down your efficiency while towing the caravan is that every time you brake, the caravan will use it's non regen "rollover" brakes.
So of a combined weight of about 4 tonnes, less than half of that feeds into the regen system. The whole point of a rollover brake is that it prevents the caravan pushing the car during deceleration: great for stability but not so great for efficiency on minute roads
The heavier the caravan, the greater that effect; and likewise every time you have to slow down en route you lose all the kinetic energy of the massive caravan
This is a BRILLIANT point. Caravan manufacturers should be building "regen axles" that take the signal from the stop light and apply braking by regeneration. The van could therefore help charge the EV battery pack.
“tonnes” is MASS, NOT WEIGHT!!!
@@johnp139 agreed but it will not affect regen
Interesting video. I used to tow a horse trailer 1 a 16.3 hand Cob in using my 2008 Ford Kuga 2.0 (136) Diesel AWD. My fuel consumption towing was around 32mpg compared to 42mpg solo. Trailer weight loaded was around 1600kg. So the diesel efficiency was far better than an EV. You once again highlighted the infrastructure failures of EV’s when charging is required when towing a trailer or indeed Caravan. So again, internal combustion engines win!
The above test clearly shows that the BMW had an efficiency equivalent of 42 mpg. It used 67 kWh for the towing and one litre of diesel has the energy of about 10kWh.
BMW won.
@@badchefi For now and the far foreseeable future I will not have an EV! I have a promaster van and get on open road 33 mpg. It is a diesel and it does ok. EVs use up more resources, in the long run. EVs have a larger footprint per convivence
sake and they have not come into their own yet....I know they will get there...but not before 2030 or I think not even before 2040. Remember we are running out of resources that are use to build the batteries. When a more and better battery and better building materials appear, then maybe the EVs will come into their. But not now....Oh it takes oil to make and build the EVs, so the gain is still the same with the dependence on oil.
@@patrickkelley6780 again you share a misconception based on misinformation like the above.
The BMW returned 42mpg and uses less resources over its lifetime.
The footprint of an EV is smaller over its lifetime compared to a diesel or petrol vehicle.
I have a few comments. I'm in the USA so all numbers will be miles, gallons, and miles per gallon for reference.
1) I tow a 22 foot, 5800 lb maximum (3886 lb empty) with a Ram Ecodiesel (3.0L turbo diesel, v6). I get about 25 mpg highway not towing and about 10-12 towing all at about 60-65 mph. The drag really is a big deal when it comes to vehicle efficiency.
2) I have questions about the impact drawing that much energy regularly from batteries can have. The weather was cooler for you during your tests but towing in warmer weather is going to be a challenge to the engineers design of the cooling system.
3) Lastly, the relative slow charge rate versus "charging" my diesel just is a pure negative for me. I do not tow often but everything is at least 50 miles away one way. Given my location in the UP of Michigan, just getting out of the UP to see family is a 180 mile trip east or west. 300 miles to see my family and 670 miles to see my in-laws. Towing would just destroy the trip.
And before some slap talks about "flying", our local airport has 2 flights in and out a day and neither are very useful. Next best airport is 120-ish miles away. Plus, with 4 family members, a round trip flight costs about $2k US and doesn't account for either renting a car at the destination or having family drive up to Cleveland to pick us up ... a 75 mile one way drive. Total rain coat of a situation. The same 670 mile trip took 1 day to drive with my diesel. About 11 hours of driving and only needed one fill up.
4) One massive advantage of an EV would be during hunting season. My diesel, as quiet as it compared to 40 years ago version, it is still a bit noisy when I head into the woods for some alone time with nature pursing the mighty whitetail.
Thanks for this 👍
Not to promote another channel but Matt Watson on CarWow did a somewhat similar test with a Skoda Enyak. The test was on a test track to enable a constant 60mph but used differing conditions ie number of people on board, HVAC environment, etc., and with and without caravan. The energy consumption was equally shocking when towing. Your test was much more real-world though in terms of charge point access on vehicle and at site. I’ve recently been doing a lot of touring and camping and was considering going EV with caravan. Completely dissuaded now!
Great vid & as expected, especially the BIG charging problem whilst towing. Imagine a ram packed services during the summer holidays, nightmare! Also most people couldn't afford an EV with that much range in the first place so the outcome would be a disaster.
Yep 👍
Can you imagine Tebay Services in the summer months waiting for chargers? Years away from EV being simple and stress free. Depends what route coaches and trucks take? If they go electric then big bays will be made available. But will they? All I see is costs increasing!
Great video!! I tow a 1.3 tonne caravan with my Mercedes c250 - a solid tow car. My efficiency drops from 50mpg to 30mpg with the van, but I can still travel from the north midlands to north Devon on half a tank. If I’m gentle and it’s not too windy. I would love an EV, and am sure I could get to my destination ok, but I’m not confident I could get the car charged to get home… it’s still diesel for me, for now.
The above EV has an efficiency of 42 mpg - it used 76kWh of electricity for the tow - one litre of diesel has the energy of 10kWh.
BMW wins.
@@badchefi you miss my point - lack of infrastructure at the other end to recharge, and lack of capacity in the BMW is the problem. Give me a range of 500 miles, with the van on the back, then we'll talk. As it is, the BMW is a silly looking paperweight when it comes to my needs.
For those wondering why an EV is so affected by towing (the logic works similarly with high speeds, weight, etc) the reason is that electric vehicles are very efficient and hold very little energy. Let me try to use some numbers.
An electric vehicle uses lets say 150wh/km to move at 100Km/h, while a petrol engine may have a consumption of 6l/100Km (47mpg) at that speed ( which considering that a l of gas has around 9.7kwh/l takes us to around 580 wh/km). The difference between 150wh/km and 580wh/km is mostly due to heat losses in the petrol engine and exhaust, so let's assume (I know it is oversimplified but lets keep it easy) that such losses keep constant regardless of the engine load. And remember that both cars use the same energy at the wheel to move its on weight.
Now you add a caravan. And suddenly you need an additional 100wh/km to move at 100Km/h. For the EV that means that the consumption goes from 150wh/km to 250wh/km (+66%) while on the petrol car, the consumption goes from 580wh/km to 680wh/km (17% increase or 6l/100km to 7l/100km, or 47mpg to 40mpg).
Again, this is a wild oversimplification because some additional losses will occur in the petrol engine with higher load and the aerodynamic effect will typically be worse on an EV, but you get the point.
The other thing with caravans is when people load them up with extra bits for their trip . Also the ground clearance of the towing car as a friend found out after the first ramp he went up with the tow hitch dragging on the ground .Here in Australia I see very little future for EV towing across country . The big EV 4 wheelers in the US have a 900 kg battery and a price tag of $150,000 US
F150 is about 100k Canadian. Trouble is supply chain issues for delivery but that will surely ease over time. The competition is heating up from Chev, Toyota, and Tesla for this lucrative market. Every farmer in North America wants EV pickups so the residential folks will have to stand in line.
The other thing to bear in mind is that who tows an empty caravan on holiday, so your range figures would have been even less and likely that you would not have made it back without a pitstop for a recharge and the associated fiasco that would have involved.
Yep 👍
If someone can afford to buy a luxury ev they’ll probably stay in some decent hotels and not a caravan 🤔
@@fwdesecretary1500 i think some of the grey army caravaners may dispute that with you mate , half of the charm of using a caravan imo , is just while on a road trip finding a spot that takes your fancy and pulling up for what ever reason , be it to throw some snags on the barby for lunch , or just stay at a scenic rest area at your leisure that takes your fancy until the bug to move on bites , at least thats my whole reason for having a caravan.
A caravan means ...... i dont have to stop in a motel , to me thats the whole point of just chilling out and going days possibly even weeks at a time without having to visit the big smoke for supplies if i like a spot .
What fiasco? Your imaginary scenarios are laughable as you have no experience with EVs.
@@PetrolPed your comment goes well with the way you distorted and withheld the fact that the BMW is superior in efficiency when towing compared to any diesel.
But I guess you call yourself petrolped for a reason 🤣
Just confirms why I have a "dirty" Land Rover Discovery 5 diesel. We tow our caravan throughout the UK & Europe more than 8 times per year.
Q for you - was the caravan fridge also being powered by the car?
Another valid point is the towing weight, so many caravan manufacturers are trying to bring these weights down to make it in theory plausible to tow. However, if you have ever towed an empty box trailer they are inherently unstable until laden, not even the Alko TCS handles this very well.
Well presented and some great camera work.
A 26' long 1.6 ton caravan is the biggest that you could find? That would be an ultra light in the US and Canada.
Yep 👍
Yes Pete, you have highlighted what I thought was the biggest problem with EVs. They don't have the range of Petrol/Deisel engines as yet when towing. and moreover, the difficulties in charging them when towing a caravan. I drive a Volvo XC-60 and tow a modest caravan. and the ease and range of the combination. is such that I can just about do the full trip on one tank of Deisel. Had I gone Electric then such trips would be fraught with problems. Interestingly, most of the CAMC sites now have a charging point for EV towcars, however you have to get there first.
This confirms my understanding. An EV is a non starter for a caravanner. It makes choosing a new, so called, greener car very difficult. A diesel is hard to beat. An alternative is a PHEV but most are petrol which is not so good but at least effective if you do lots of short distance local miles when not towing. Thanks for taking an interest in this topic.
Glad you enjoyed it 👍
Much better evs are available
Driving the heaviest caravan you can find at70mph ? Can someone please do a sensible test in a suitable ev without any banana skins ?
IN SHORT , TOWING VEHICLES DOUBLE THEIR CONSUMPTION
ON THAT BOMBSHELL
what an utterly pointless video
By the way you utter novices , the brakes on the van will increase your consumption
Old guys in EVS , WOW
There was talk here in Australia that any EVs will not be allowed to tow anything.
One reason was the unknown safety concerns with new technologies by insurance companies and as you clearly pointed out about charging stations. The areas required for car and caravan, boat or trailers will require more land and more stations to be built. This is a long way from happening here but there are many petrol stations cashing in for only car charging.
The biggest argument here with EV cars is the fact that to charge your car we are using fossil fuels to create electricity. We have now been told that the price to change your batteries will be more than the cost of the car. This will also be interesting to see how the cost of insurance will be compared to petrol cars.
Great report on what needs to be addressed and I just wonder if you would have made it back if the caravan was loaded up.
Here in Ontario Canada, there is a road tax on fossil fuels that goes towards roads, road construction, bridges and maintenance. Fuel bought in a local gas station, a part of the road tax goes that municipality to go towards their roads. EV are driving on roads they are not helping to maintain
can you do a feature on the lifespan of an EV compared to a normal car who's life span depends on how well the car is driven and looked after, rather than the lifespan of the battery?
and also on how the world is going to dispose of the extremely toxic batteries. and the exact cost of producing said batteries on the environment, right from the initial mining.
And then lets look at the cost to human life when one of these batteries catches fire and a fire fighter accidentally ingests the super toxic fumes from the battery!
but don't forget to look at a place like the Sidney Opera house where the car park, is underneath the Opera house, and if it was full of EV's and one started the obvious chain reaction, how many people would be trapped inside the building and incinerated to death?
Your fuel usage fits well with my nearly 30 years of caravaning. Very roughly speaking, I would use twice as much petrol/diesel with the van in tow. My other observation was that the weight of the caravan did not affect the performance much. I wouldn't notice the difference between an empty caravan and a fully loaded van. However, a head wind would be very hard work.
guy here in aus, retired, owns an f350 s/duty, 7.3 tdi power stroke. weighs 4.3t. tows a 28 ft caravan.. gets 15 lt 100.. why buy an ev..
So did you do tank to tank fill up, just don’t understand how you halved your mpg, so from 40 mpg in a diesel you got 20 mpg ? Clearly something wrong with your car, i towed with a diesel Mercedes 2.5lt and dropped from average 48mpg to 40mph tank to tank fill up.
Appalling range and no distance, wouldn’t get to Dover ferry from Portsmouth on one charge.
Same here.
Normal European combo:
My VW Touran 1.4 TSI with 1350 kg (loaded) single axle caravan: fuel consumption doubles towing the caravan driving ca. 100 km/h on highway.
That is a great caravan!! Towing almost always halves range, EVEN in a gas vehicle!! Our truck (US) looses 40% of its unladen range.
I wish I could find that fine a caravan here in the US. Makers here think weight is no issue. NONE are are under 4000 lbs and 26 ft long and those that are close are neither aerodynamically fit or more than spartan inside.
Adding the caravan, you increased total weight by ~60% and at least doubled your frontal area.
My wife and I (in US) only travel a maximum of 300 miles per day. And that’s with a 30-40 min stop to refuel/restroom stop/get lunch mid day. We don’t rush (60mph), and we stop by 3pm. It IS our holiday away after all, But towing a caravan DOES take notably more time unless you’re determined to take the joy out of the trip.
Don’t talk rubbish I lose 25% towing with my diesel , can still manage 280 miles between fill up .
@@stevensmith662 It’s not rubbish, it’s a travel trailer that has a 10 foot tall x 8 foot wide frontal area and weighs greater than 4000 lbs. The frontal area alone causes at least a 40% loss in fuel economy for EVERY truck I’ve towed with, gas or diesel.
Good test, one question, as an ex caravaner myself, in my experience when towing it is not so much the weight you are towing that determines fuel consumption, but whether there is a head wind or not, as wind has a significant effect on fuel consumption.
Battery electric vehicles have such poor energy density fair to a single gal of diesel or unleaded fuel it's a joke how pathetic it is you just don't get the power out of it that's why so much power is required to get it to move the extra weight or deal with the extra drag because the other fuel has so much power it would just push right through it without really using much more fuel at all
Hey PetrolPeds, as an ex-caravanner i will say that the WLTP of an petrol car also less is without a trailer. In my youth i driven a 5 series 6 cylinder where the consumption almost 60% more was with a trailer. A fuel consumption of 18,5mi/gallon in stead of 29,5 mi/gallon. The caravan we had weighed 1200kg in stead of the Swift with a weight of 1600kg. Conclusion in my opinion, its not so bad 😮
Spot on!
Another excellent video. In the past I have towed caravans with a range of vehicles including a Peugeot 405, Rover 75 and a VW Caravelle. You always have a higher fuel consumption figure and the same is to be expected when you tow with an electric vehicle. In theory electric cars should make very good towing vehicles because of their extra weight and low centre of gravity, assuming the batteries a under the floor. The problem, as you and Andrew Ditton who’s a Caravan Journalist who tows with a KIA EV6, have highlighted, is going to be access to public chargers and places like motorway services areas are going to have to install more chargers anyway and include access for electric vehicles towing caravans, horse boxes, etc.
Andrew Little - at last a person with a sensible approach and a good understanding of towing. Shame Petrol Ped can't do 5mins of research like I did and find out that petrol and diesel cars average about the same loss of MPG when towing. You can't argue with physics.
Thank you for your kind comments. Personally I suspect that the reduction in range has more to do with aerodynamics than the weight of the caravan. I’m thinking of buying a BMW i4 40 (rear wheel drive only) with a 7’6” wide caravan, which I anticipate would need charging every 100-120 miles, which corresponds to comfort and tea breaks, which you should be able to make yourself in the caravan.
Indeed 👍
@@terryjimfletcher I have to disagree, we have a similar weighted caravan and my old 1997 4.6 Range Rover drops from 19mpg empty on a run to an average of 14.5 mpg when towing so about a quarter less mpg not a half.
@@terryjimfletcher Trouble is diesel car will still do hundreds of miles towing from full tank even with range loss. Other key fact is you add hundreds of miles back in couple of minutes refueling. EV charging would be couple of hours and more stops for same range 🤔
£150k on the road there with car and caravan. Anyone who ties that amount of depreciating £s in that nonsense is completely mad. A guy who buys that BMW only stays in 4*+ hotels. The caravan can be towed by a £4k Mondeo or V70 and that's really where it is intended. ICE consumption is greater but if a diesel car will do 600 miles on a full tank then 300 while towing is enough to get you from home to a caravan site without refuelling on the way.
Spent some time with my family in our caravan years ago in the Scottish highlands. £3k caravan, £10k Discovery 300tdi. Guy pulled in to the next pitch. £80K Range Rover, £25k van. Same holiday , same site, same view. Still, entirely his choice I guess how to spend his money.
@@bordersw1239 did the RR guy have an Essex accent?
@@JohnnyMotel99 .LOL, can’t remember , I remember he was a nice guy though. I guess his was a lifestyle choice, some people really hate hotels and like the freedom caravans give them. Interesting- my children all remember the caravan holidays more than the others they had.
Caravan 1.6 tonne, car 2.6 tonne. That’s considerably more than 3.5 tonnes which most people are limited to driving. I appreciate that you’ve gone right to the upper end of the scale for both car and caravan and there are many combinations which will fall inside the 3.5t threshold but what about the gas bottle, food, drink, bikes, kayaks, caravan awning, picnic table and chairs and all the other associated items you can caravanning. The idea of having an electric car for towing is completely unworkable because of the weight of the batteries. When will this world realise that you can’t have your cake and eat it, there needs to be a trade off in what you can achieve and right now towing a caravan with an electric car on a standard B licence is so restrictive you might as well holiday on your driveway.
All that weight on a greenfield site, up to the axles in mud before you could say " that looks a good spot".🤓
3500 is the max towing weight. It’s something like 5800 total on a standard uk license
@jimblonduk Yes, and when you reach 70 years old, it drops down to a combined weight of 3,500 kg unless you pay for a medical and apply for a lorry licence.
www.gov.uk/guidance/new-rules-for-towing-a-trailer-or-caravan-with-a-car-from-autumn-2021
@Gary Leishman - There has to be some advantages to being an old git. I fall into this category, I can also drive a 7.5 tonne non articulated and a road roller 😆
I occasionally tow 2 tonnes with my 4 litre 290 kw petrol car so I'm not surprised by the results. Because in my experience a petrol or diesel would probably use twice as much fuel in the same circumstances as your experiment. The best type of vehicle for this type of work is a diesel. That is why large rigs on the road and tractors on farms use diesel engines. By weight a 1000 kg battery could be replaced by 1100 litres of diesel and at 5 litres per 100kms would take you 2200 kms. EV proponents are deluded if they think this nonsense can save the planet.
you need a TOWED DIESEL GENERATOR behind caravan. an ATLAS - COPCO 4 wheeled 200hp model.
Great review Ped . I think it is what caravan owners have suspected but no one has tested it out so well done 👍
Thanks 👍
For me this was expected, half the efficacy per mile, twice the battery % used, half the range. This is why I keep my Tesla model S for basic driving around the city and suburbs and my diesel 4x4 for towing. I can easily get over 600km towing a big 7m long boat.
I thought Tesla was going to have their own low cost insurance? Seem s like a pipedream now just as the practicality of EVS .
Just to tow a wrecked EV and store it 80 feet away from everything in the lot costs thousands.
The hidden costs are insane
As a caravaner. I tow one with a unladen weight of 850 kg. My diesel is a 2.0 ltr. When full it has an estimated range of 500 mls. it averages round about 33 mls. Which I think is quite good
I recently spoke with the guys selling the new Maxus T90 pick up. I use my 2011 Navara D40 to tow my caravan and when they asked what I would use the Maxus for, they told me to stick with my old truck. Apparently the Maxus can tow 1500KG but would run out of juice in an hour.
Excellent point at the end…we don’t want scientific tests, we want real tests like this one. Well done. 👍
Thank you!
Real world tests are ‘scientific’ ..a valid test is a valid test, you are adding data points. Scientific principles encourage this. You’ve stated your variables.
@@joeynessily no they’re not. Real world tests take place under infinitely variable conditions, in the real world. Try telling me the “scientific’ fuel consumption tests are in any way relevant, or accurate, in the real world.
Once again you talk about issues related to EV’s that no one that I am aware of is talking about in Canada. Most TH-cam segments just talk about the cars and how well appointed they are pros and cons and so on. I watched your segment on batteries and learned more than anything I have seen or read so far. I think Petrol Ped is now my go to source for topics related to EV’s. Keep up the good work!
That’s great to hear 🙏🏻👊
So glad you did this review. This is something I've been telling people for a while. I think it's a real concern for the caravan industry and could ultimately cause the death of them. We caravan as a family and have a similar twin axle caravan to the one you used. I use a Tesla Model 3, but for towing we use the wife's Mercedes ML SUV. What concerns me is that more and more vehicles that previously would easily tow up to 2000kg are now becoming either electric or hybrid with a max towing capacity of 1500kg. This is very much limiting the options when we come to change the tow car. Despite the range the BMW iX is a capable tow vehicle, however what you didn't mention is the cost. Would be out of my range and that of a lot of caravanners.
It’s just another reason (among many) as to why the entire EV industry is a white elephant. For niche use in an urban environment it will suit some people (subject to a reliable and accessible charging system), but outside those circumstances EVs are just too inflexible and unpredictable.
@@nigelpearson9101 auburns - others people’s breathing is optional…
Find me a journey an EV *can’t* do. Oh, that’s right, they can do them all, they might need a slightly different plan… but you already stop for toilet breaks, food, and a brief rest.
@@JohnR31415 I'm sure there are plenty of journeys an EV's can't do towing a trailer. A rather large 116KWH battery and you're range is 150 miles or less is pathetic. Therefore, any journey with more than 150 miles between charging stations would be out of the question or any journey that was more than 75 miles away from the nearest charging station. 75 miles is nothing.
@@JohnR31415"Find me a journey an EV can’t do" OK Mt Isa (QLD Australia) to Darwin (NT Australia), maybe in the future there'll be charging points along the way, many of the remote downs are installing diesel powered EV charging stations, but there' none there yet
In reality an EV can do any journey that a ICE car or horse and cart can do, no argument, it's all how much planning you need to do and how long it will take,.
The journey I mentioned you can do it, jut bring your own diesel generator and diesel, the question is how much longer will the trip take you and is it worth it for driving an EV?
And that's part of the plan
Thanks for the video. I also tow with an EV but my Scamp 13 deluxe comes in at 2000 pounds, and my Model Y has a 3500 pound capacity. I normally can get 3.5 to 4 plus miles per kw depending on the type of driving. While towing in a non-mountain environment, I get a little over 2 miles per kw. I also reduce speed to 60 mph. Tesla here in the US has started putting in a stall that you can pull straight in. Sometimes, there are 2 of them. Remember, the effect of towing on petrol vehicles is also significantly reduced, but the ease of finding a petrol station is significantly easier for the time being.
And the petrol versions “recharge” in just a few minutes.
@Bruce Harkness true, mine takes about 20 min and costs about $19 per 125 miles.
Great adventure mate, thanks for having me along!
Camera work wasn't too shoddy and I didn't talk too much so I'm happy with that! 😎👌
Thanks for your help 👍
I can’t imagine doing my camping trips of many hundred miles towing my trailer with roof box fitted in an electric car. Total nightmare, just not fit for purpose other than daily commute if u can charge at home.
Excelent video! The possitive thing is that I like the design of the caravan and BMW in towing mode, just wow. Less possitive is the range if you go on vacation with a heavy caravan. Charging every 150 miles makes you quiet limitted on adventures.
Can you do the same with an ICE vehicle. Physics will be the same I suspect, adding more weight, rolling resistance and air resistance requires more energy input. There's no getting around it.
Agree. It’s an energy density issue. The 116kWh battery is equivalent to something like 2.37 UK gallons of diesel, so despite all of this technically the Beemer achieved somewhere in the range of 65 miles to the gallon 😂
An ICE vehicle would be similar without the charging issues 👍
My EV6 AWD pulls 1600 kg and then needs about 30 - 50% more energy as usual 16,8 kWh on 100 km. The German ADAC tested also coming to similar results in summertime going to Italy!
I have a caravan and need a new car, after seeing this it confirms that I definitely need a 2.0TDi. I just hope they keep making them !
Some advice learned from this experiment if you want to be an EV caravaner:
1. Get a good, efficient, high-capacity battery, and sturdy EV.
2. Plan your trips to camping caravan-friendly areas where charging overnight can be done on the spot without having to worry about untowing, or which parking design is easy to charge the EV and the caravan utilities.
3. Keep your tires well pressured.
4. Remortgage your house to purchase a 2.4 ton EV
5. Diesel generator in caravan to charge EV at the services
Or just keep your good ol diesel
Fantastic video Ped. About time someone did a proper test like this with a proper, realistic caravan, not the usual micro-vans that have been used to try and make towing with an EV appear to be a realistic proposition. A stagecoach would give shorter travel times long journeys than an EV towing a large caravan.
Glad you enjoyed it
The New Forest is a lovely part of the world. I towed a caravan there with my Morris Ital 1.7 estate and it did the job well. We have a Nissan X Trail to tow a caravan these days.
Great vid as always. As an EV owner I’m the first to admit they still aren’t for everyone. The chargers have a lot of issues (ignoring the availability / reliability issues). Most of them are in places and positioned back when EVs were a much smaller niche, and most vehicles were the size of a Nissan leaf. The positioning has a lot of issues. Try using some of them if you have a wheelchair for instance. My wife doesn’t like driving our ev long distance as a lot of the charge points are in the far end of a dimly lit car park and often very secluded. Something which as a man I just hadn’t considered.
Indeed 👍
Great video - fair test, massive caravan / massive EV.
One error I noticed (and only cos I have an i4 so am familiar with BMW OS8) : at 10’20” the displayed 2.5kWh is not how much charge you used, but how much the car regenerated from braking. Similarly, at 13’50” you have regenerated 6.0kWh (at this point you had used 32% of battery, so around 36kWh). At the end of the second day (32’30”) you had regenerated 5.4kWh, so about the same.
These cars start at £122,775.00. How can the everyday person afford one?
That price is what makes this test unrealistic for the average driver.
But Kia, Hyundai offer towing capacity of 1600kg for less than £50k.
Still a lot of money, but.
Very interesting video and many thanks for doing this. I’m a caravan owner with a leased Volvo XC60 mild hybrid diesel and it tows the caravan very well, I hardly know it’s there. The interesting fact I get roughly less than half mpg (28 as opposed to 47) but my range hasn’t been a problem because we haven’t as yet travelled very far. EV’s are going to be a big challenge for most people at any time, towing a caravan will be a massive problem if towing it more than 100 miles.
The whole industry needs a wake up call and need to build more charging stations like Gridserve were you can pull in very much like a normal petrol station. Only problem is you’ve probably blocked off 3 other bays or can’t fit in because others are already on charge.
👍
@@PetrolPed Don't worry you will not have a car soon they are slowly being phased out, your caravan will be useless unless you are keeping it in your garden.
So you have a desiel volvo that drives via a generator rather than gearbox? But costs a whole lot more.
@@farmernige the mild hybrid Volvo doesn’t provide power for vehicle motion. The diesel engine is connected to a 8 speed automatic gearbox not a generator. Fuel economy is better than non hybrid like the previous model. We never towed with the old model so I don’t what the fuel economy was when towing.
The point is if any car is towing the fuel or electric economy would be a lot less therefore reducing the range.
Currently my Volvo can have a range of up to 600 miles when towing I’m guessing it will be about 300 or roughly half.
With an EV at maximum you are only starting with about 300 miles if you’re lucky so when towing it will be a lot less.
My question would be: ‘what were you expecting?’ With electric vehicles distance is going to be about weight and wind resistance. Doubling the weight and resistance halves the range. Isn’t that what you expected? Petrol fuel consumption towing chews through the fuel. Caravaning with an electric car will be different. Caravans will probably need to have a huge battery as part of the van just to get some sort of range.
Really informative and relevant video as usual Ped. My son does some amateur motor racing and I tow his car with a 3 series touring (petrol). The weight of the trailer is similar to your caravan. Consumption drops from around 37 mpg to 29 mpg which is a lot less of a drop than your experience. I also go to Anglesey, Oulton Park and Snetterton (from Oxford), so the distance and charge elements you highlighted are hugely relevant. Drive through chargers are definitely necessary plus a lot of extra time allowed for the journey if using electric! Thanks Ped
I. Found it really interesting for the same reasons. I tow the race car with a Skoda a superb and it drops to around 35mpg from 40. I fear I'll be hanging up the helmet rather than spending the amount of time required to get to circuits with an electric tow car.
Glad you enjoyed it 👍
Hey mate - a real caravan in Australia will generally weigh over 3 tons. The EV would be hopeless in terms of range in Oz!
The energy required to tow a trailer/caravan is significantly more than just the tow vehicle alone as demonstrated by this video. The weight of the tow is part of this which was discussed early in the video.
What was not mentioned that I recall was the effect of the frontal area of the tow. My understanding is that more than 1/2 the extra power required to tow a camper is due to drag from the frontal area.
In the US poptop campers are available which use canvas sides and when being towed are 1/4-1/3 the normal height. This decreases weight and vastly decreases wind drag since much of the camper is immediately behind the tow vehicle and shielded from most of the wind.
I believe that poptops are less common in the UK than the US but there are some.
It would be interesting to see the test redone with a poptop.
He did mention the drag of the caravan being another factor in the greatly increased load on the battery towards the end of the video.
Here in Australia most caravans are 2.8 tones and up to 3.5 tones so EVs are useless for towing
AS I have always suspected this trans to EVs was never thought out very well. I personally think we need to be looking at Hydrogen power or dual-fuel vehicles. It's never going to work for long-haul/towing/HGVs until all these things are sorted out. It's not possible to run EVHGVs around most of Scotland & even busses are having problems
At least when you have an accident in a hydrogen vehicle you wont have to bother about anything else because neither you, your vehicle, caravan, family or the car you crashed into will exist.
Hydrogen for any normal car is dead thank god. It really is not viable.
I wonder how the loss of battery % might have been with a carload of people, dog in the back, and all the holidaying paraphernalia, food, drink, cycles, etc. that a family might normally take on the summer holiday. What are the stats for a journey that includes running AC on a really hot day or heating on a really cold day vs not having to run either? Are they much of a drain on the battery?
The extra weight and AC wouldn’t make much difference. The bikes on the back are another thing entirely- that would hammer your range because in an EV it’s all about being streamlined.
I am driving a comparable combination: BMW iX M60 and a caravan (double axle/ 2 tons loaded)
I agree to all your findings. To adjust to the ev specifics I plan my longest daily distances to around 400 km with a lunch break to charge ... also the tyre pressure should be at the upper limit, "surfing" in the shadow of a truck (controlled typically at 87 km/h) gives you a 20% better result in range- we travel outside holidays so there is no jam at the charging stations
All that limits aerodynamic drag. A change in driving habits makes the world of difference.
Can’t imagine anything worse than following a truck on holiday. I like to see the road.
Make a car sold without batteries - cheap. Rent batteries from a replacement source, when you need charge then drop battery and pick up a new one fully charged, would be quicker than filling with petrol. REPLACEABLE BATTERIES the obvious answer. PS, I understand this is already being done with scooters in Vietnam.
A very interesting video and definitely highlights of the issues of using an electric car for towing. There is a very popular caravan TH-camr who currently has an electric tow car and a smaller caravan. However he is finding much the same issues as yourself in this test!
With regards, towing efficiency a caravan or horsebox is much worse than towing a car trailer just down to the aero dynamics. With that conclusion, I’ll probably stick to my 3L V6 E class estate 😆
Which TH-camr do you mean? Please give a hint!
Andrew Dutton ?
That adaptive speed cruise control...what a fantastic thing that is.
It allows you to drive a set distance and at the same speed as the car in front of you (without cruise control) wants to drive at!
No worries...if you are set at 69mph and some Joe cuts in front of you after a little sea sawing overtaking, then you can now drive at their speed....65mph....62mph...68mph...55 mph...
When you are driving a car that has this fantastic feature, then the first thing that you need to do, is find the button that switches it off.
Interesting. I use a BMW 530d Touring 2018 with a 1500kg van. I reckon I’d get 38 on your trip solo and about 25 with the van, so say a 33% penalty. The EV had a 50% drop. The future doesn’t look to positive does it? Great video. Thank-you.
Same here except trailer not quite as heavy and my MPG penalty was between 15 and 20%. Love my diesel beemer and would not trade it for an EV until forced to do so.
Glad you enjoyed it 👍
I wish I could afford that pair.
As someone that uses rechargeable Power tools I love how it has revolutionized my job.
Great video. Other Videos show about 50% reduction in range and the problem with using public charging when towing. I believe the GridServe stations allow for charging whilst hitched.
I think if you had an EV and wanted to tow, it would be easier to hire an ICE vehicle for that journey. Not ideal I know.
I’ve seen a few that do 👍
Surprise, surprise. The towing range is pathetic. Just another reason why I won’t buy an EV until I have no choice. EV’s suck.
"A petrol car towing a caravan still has around 40% on average of its range without the caravan, a diesel car even around 50%, but with an EV, the range goes down to a HALF!" - What a shocker. 🙄
@@christianosminroden7878
Well the petrol vehicle doesn’t have to wait 2 hours to get going again
@@FP194 Two hours is a factor 4 or more exaggeration for pretty much any current EV that can tow a caravan to begin with. But yes, EVs are not going to be the car of choice for extended caravan tours at least for quite some time, I‘ll happily agree to that.
I‘m not arguing that EVs are ideal for caravans - far from it, obviously. This video, however, is about the relative range loss of an EV with a caravan as compared to itself without the caravan, and then tries to sell an even surprisingly good result as devastating. And that bothers me.
Agree, any caravan towing will about double fuel consumption of a tow car, so would expect the EV to double the electric use. What is the suprise? On a personal opinion, the BMW looks utterly ugly!
I don't believe that we will ever see the (no choice) situation. People will not put up with foolish politicians for very long. Petrol vehicles will always be available.
Great video, especially highlighting the nightmare of charging for us caravaners. Obviously there’s an impact on fuel economy when towing with diesel, not 50% but still measurable, it would be interesting to do a direct comparison of the impact of the same trailer on broadly comparable vehicles using different fuels. We’re a niche sector but @andrewditton has the biggest following of any U.K. caravanning channel, and he swapped to towing a small caravan with an EV6 about 12months ago. He’s been brilliantly documenting the reality of living with an EV tow car. I tow solo (often as a solo adult with my 2 boys with me) so it’s completely impossible for me to unhitch and leave the caravan somewhere to go off and charge. Not only that, but often motorway services are set up that either the turns are far too tight to get a caravan into the cars car park, so the caravan has to be unhitched and left in the caravan parking and car driven around to the charger! In many service stations the one way design means it’s impossible to get back to the caravan parking! That’s if there’s even space in the caravan parking, it’s often full of confused/lazy car drivers causing those of us driving 3.5-5tonne rigs to delay a break until the next services (if that even has space…) - not good for safety! Lots of work to do for charging forecourt and caravan designers, aerodynamics really are key and that trend, which was big in the late 80s/early 90s, has been forgotten during recent decades - time for a caravan aerodynamics revival! Well done on those New Forest roads, my caravan is relatively skinny and still it barely fits! Thanks again, really excellent to see the impact of a big van and really appreciate these issues being highlighted so there might be a future for family caravanning!
Thanks for this 👍
@@giorgosa most already have solar on but at only 100watts ish out of the factory and 100Ah AGM batteries I.E. you can get about 60Ah (a bit more when new) usable out of it. If manufacturers switched to LiFePO4 which is currently down to 6x cost, then at least they’d save about 50% weight and the depth of discharge available is much better. What are you proposing that the solar enabled trailer feeds power back to the towing vehicle? Look up the Dethleffs CoCo home, that was a design idea of that from a few years ago. At ~1.4KWh per mile even with 300watts on the roof and Sahara levels of sunshine that’s not going to get you very far… Or are you thinking that the trailer should have a powered axle and thus takes most of the strain off of the towing vehicle thereby keeping usage at ~2.8KWh per mile as shown in this vid? That’s the tech Thor industries (owner of Hymer, Airstream, Elddis, etc.) are working on at the moment BUT in addition to the tech being perfected that also requires law change because the trailer then becomes an active vehicle rather than a slave to the towing vehicle. Even with 200Ah of lithium batteries on board that’s a mere 2.4Kwh I.E. it will need a proper floor sized battery AND the trailer battery will need recharging at the same time as the towing vehicles battery… Hence decent, ubiquitous drive through charging. Range is annoying but it’s good to take a break every couple of hours when towing as I already do with my diesel, so for me anyway, it’s more about availability of practical chargers than absolute range. With the roof space available on top of a caravan you’d be able to squeeze maybe 200 or 300watts up there, and solar panels weight a reasonable amount, which affects the towing stability quite a lot having that much weight high up. Flexible ones or some sort of thin film would help the towing dynamics. Then of course many of us like to caravan off grid so we need our batteries to be fully charged once we reach our destination. Currently, decent solar can keep up with the simple demands of phone charging, lights, air circulation for the heating systems, etc. as long as we’re heating, cooking and running the fridge on gas. I guess what I’m trying to say is that aerodynamics are massively important and fairly simply addressed, so that should be phase 1. Electrical technology isn’t though, that requires bottom up re-design and even then basic physics limits what’s possible. The best demo of solar + aerodynamics is imo the Aptera car. So aerodynamic that the version covered in solar cells can charge itself up to ~30miles per day BUT only in California sun shine… my impression is that manufacturers are aware and the biggest global player is working on it; but it isn’t a very high tech industry so before they can do anything they also need to seriously upskill… Most firms are relatively small hence the ability to recruit R&D teams of the magnitude and skill levels that the auto makers have, is simply not going to happen… enjoying getting away from it all in my caravan whilst I can because it’s going to be a bumpy few years ahead when we’re all expected to transition!
There are many problems with Motorway Service (MSAs) and caravaning. Parking is only the tip of the iceburge. There is no one policy for all MSA's and ususlly they leave it up to the local manager to sort these problems out. So there's no consistency in the running of the parking areas on MSA's. Incidentally Cars with any type of tralier may use a Caravan Parking bay. so White vans with a Digger on a tralier can use a Caravan bay. simpley - it's a nightmare. To date, I have not seen a Caravan Parking Bay with an Electric vehicle charging point.
@@giorgosa my bet is on the main chassis manufacturer Alko, either on their own or collaborating with Thor industries, building a chassis with integrated battery (like a Tesla power wall but keeping the weight low which is essential for trailer stability (and actually would improve stability even relative to todays designs) and then selling that as a platform for the plethora of small caravan building firms to build off, meaning those caravan building firms don’t need their own battery, etc. R&D teams. Of course charging infrastructure remains key, you just can’t get enough solar onto the roof (even in places with decent solar radiation ie not the U.K.) to get enough charge back into the batteries at the rate it’s needed for driving and guarantee after a long drive that you still have enough power to power your mobile house. This is important as we’re all slowly heading away from gas usage too. Gradually large battery packs, inverters and induction hobs are replacing eg gas hobs. Heating is still an issue though as it’s so power hungry. Solar cell efficiency can only go so far though (look up things like the Shockley-Queisser limit) even with clever electronics like mppt controllers and micro inverters extracting every bit of power from a cell or panel ie we’re still limited by fundamental physics. Anyway, we (ie governments/intergovernmental organisations) need to proceed carefully thinking about whole lifecycle costs, carbon emissions, mineral extraction issues, etc. Diesel bad/EV good is far too simplistic and will just lead to other deleterious issues! It’s a subject of great interest for me so I’m attentively following :)
@@BusyElf completely agree, we’re just not important; it’s a nightmare during the summer holidays! Don’t mind anyone with a trailer using it of course, they need more space, it’s the masses of ordinary cars that just treat it as an overflow if the main car park looks even a tad busy or they happen to drive through the caravan spots 1st so just stop there that really riles me! Compounded by usually local management doing absolutely zero about it. The amount of times I’ve turned up with my 4.5tonne combo and a small person in the back seat needing the loo, but not been able to stop due to solo cars parked there is really annoying. I’m building a library of service stations drive through a on my channel to hopefully help other caravaners/motorhomers out. My theory is that we spend far less than car drivers especially when divided by the size parking space we need and service station providers are running it as a purely money making venture, NOT the providing rest stops for safety which happen to have shops, approach that is taken in other parts of the world. It’s just mindset imo.
Dire range impact aside, the charging stress and faff required instantly discounts it for me as a caravanner. It is a disappointing but predictable result, makes it difficult knowing where to put your money on next car. I’m finding it hard to look past honking big diesels with any confidence. Really good test, thanks Ped. A brave topic to take on given your usual focus. I can confirm It is possible to still love driving, love cars, motorbikes and own a caravan.
EV should never have left the city confines it is most suited to regarding range issues and environmental impact. Odd that politicians and governments occupy city environments most of their day. It does rather question both EV’s and the tunnel vision mentality of governments.
Interesting video, I wondered about the towing as well, so it looks like it cuts the travel distance by about 50%, another issue I wondered about is how do you charge a motorhome, you've still got length but you can't unhitch it and the parking at charge points is not long enough, you'd be outside the marked area and risk getting a fine? There has been very little thought put into the EV charging as they seem to only be designed for cars yet they want vans , buses and lorries to be EV as well.
the rush to put in ev charging points clearly has not been thought through properly, the beemer and caravan is a monster combo but again doesn't work, the thought of going along slow rural roads with limited range will be a no, no for most. can you imagine the chaos in summers when the caravaners are queueing for charging points? i'll stick with my x6 thanks. enjoyed the vid again ped.
Thanks 👍
There are quite a few people that pull caravan trailers with an EV.
My experience is with an Tesla MX100D and a Hobby 560 (2.3 m wide, single axle) with a trailer weight of about 1.600 kg.
I have tracked a journey of a round-trip from about Ingolstadt (Germany ) and South Tirol (Italy) of a total length of 897 km. The result was an average of about 332 Wh/km or 1.9 mi/kWh.
The reasons for lower consumption:
- smaller caravan, especially width only 7.7 ft
- single axle
- speed on motorways only about 50 mph
- better aerodynamics of car and trailer
Regarding charging we had the same problem and had to unhitch the trailer. This was the main reason why we changed the MX100D to a PHEV. We did a similar journey with the PHEV and was much more convenient. And locally we could then drive fully electric.
If you want to use an EV for towing a caravan I recommend to limit the size of the trailer and don't drive to fast. Then you can stay at about 1.5 the consumption of the car. Be careful when driving steep hills like the Alps. But the best compromise for me is an PHEV with an electric range of 50 miles at least.
Hi Pedro, just an update really. I completed the caravan holiday to Cornwall from Stoke on Trent.
Left home in the i4, pulling an elddis 574 at 3am on Sunday 23rd July, with 100%.
I set the cruise at 60 and jumped onto the M6 at Stoke on Trent.
1st stop, at Gloucester services. We rolled in with 13%, after averaging 1.5 m/kWh.
Gloucester only has 50kW chargers, so I left the caravan at Gloucester, and drove 5 miles down the road to a Costa, with 2 Instavolts. Although they were 120kW, I only pulled 87kW. Sat there for over an hour, and got back up to 97%. Then I had to drive up the M5 to the junction above Gloucester services, then double back to the services to get the caravan, wife and daughter. That hogged some of my range. Next stop was Collumpton, near Exeter. 6 x 350kW chargers there. I rolled in with only 3%. Squeaky bum time. The car pulled 184kW, and by the time we’d had breakfast and a toilet break, the car was at 100%. Don’t worry, we didn’t keep anyone waiting. Next stop was Penhale, just a bit further down the A30 from Cornwall services. We chose Penhale, as there were 2 shell recharge chargers, and a shopping village. We rolled in with 8%, and we had to wait 10 mins to get onto a charger, but once on, we mooched in the shops for about 30 mins, and the car was back to 80%. This was plenty to get us to St Ives.
Bear in mind that at each stop, I had to un-hitch and then hitch the caravan, as none of them were pull-through. All in all, not a bad trip, apart from the messing about at Gloucester. Also, I noticed, after the Gloucester Instavolt charge, I found a BP Pulse, a bit closer, but it wasn’t showing in the car nav. If all services had at least 6 x 350kW chargers, it would have been a doddle. There would be no squeaky bums, as we could go to any services, and get a really fast charge. Alas, this is not yet the case. The car was a beasty, towing, but only averaged 1.5 m/kWh, which is disappointing, as I was set at 60 all the way. I couldn’t have driven any more efficiently. Andrew Ditton on TH-cam, managed 2m/kWh pulling a larger van than mine, with an EV6. All I can think is, he didn’t have it loaded up like mine, and there was only him and the dogs in the car. He said he didn't use the cruise, as it munches through the battery, but I find it's more efficient than a clunky human on the pedal.
So, in conclusion, yes it was disappointing at 1.5 m/kWh, but at 60 mph, and 3 rest stops, fairly relaxing too. I now know it's possible to tow a caravan a good distance in the UK, without too much fuss.
Thanks for this. Very interesting 👍