Thanks for posting ranges & percentages rather than just Wh/mi. As someone who doesn't own a Tesla yet, seeing range & percentages is a lot more helpful.
Along time ago in a different but similar context, I asked a more experienced trailer-er/tow-er how he handled towing issues (up hills, down hills, worse energy efficiency, etc). He settled it for me by saying to simply lower my expectations. The trailer with cargo drastically alters the power-to-weight ratio for ascending, the brake-to-weight ratio for descending, the energy used, the heat dispelled. Where I would normally drive a sedan at 70mph, I would normally drive a trailer at 60mph. There is a bonus to towing at 60mph: the navigational predictability of travelling 1 mile per minute. :)
It's good to have some feedback on this issue from someone outside the standard EV commenting section. You hear so much about the towing topic. The more reports from real time users, the better we can judge the reality of how well these vehicles perform under these conditions.
Thanks for an excellent, informative video. It seems that the dynamics of the Model Y was hardly effected by the trailer which, assuming safety is a concern, is a huge plus. All the best.
Just stumbled upon your video! It's directly relevant to my camper and prospective Tesla purchase. I have an Aliner Ranger 12 that would be towed by any Model Y I got. That’s a 1600 lb dry trailer. Our current tow vehicle needs refueling every 170-200 miles doing 65 mph. Those always entail at least a 15 minute stop for stretching and snacks, so this wouldn't be too much different from what we do now. Thanks for the informative video!
I just towed the *smallest* U-Haul trailer from the DFW area to Las Vegas, NV, about 1200 miles. Despite the trailer being the smallest available and being very lightly loaded, We saw about the same energy consumption as you did, about 500 to 520Wh/mile. Apart from hitting nearly every charger on the way, the Model Y towed like a dream. Very capable and very stable (we hit some heavy crosswinds in New Mexico and Arizona, and the air off the semis on I-40 tended to blow cars around a bit.) Range and battery level predictions at each recharging stop were spot-on. If the car said we'd be at 3% at the next tsop, we almost always were. Never lower than the prediction, but sometimes higher. When navigating to a charger, the navigation system will tell you what the predicted charge level is and updates that in real-time. Very handy. On one occasion, we were driving 75-80mph and our predicted pwecentage dropped below 5%. The nav system warned us and asked us to slow down. By slowing down, we were able to get the predicted average back up and used that trick througout the trip. We'd also charge and extra 5-10% at each stop to either stretch our drive to another charger, or morre often, drive a little faster to keep up with traffic on I-40. The only blemish was in Flagstaff. Tesla's nav system insisted on routing us to a charger at a Courtyard by Marriott. It's a 12-bay v2 charger with ZERO amenities and was packed every time I was routed there (2 stalls free with several cars en route.) But less than 7 miles away, right off I-40 is a brand new charger at a Circle K. It's got 24 bays, all brand-new v3 chargers. Half are back-in, and half are nose-in and one is pull-through! MUCH better than the one we were routed to. In fact, while we were there, three other cars from the Marriott showedup for faster charging. Almost all the trip was done using Tesla Superchargers. The one exception was Williams, AZ. That was our stay for the night when we visited the Grand Canyon. We had to charge twice there and the only fast-charging option was Electrify America. Fortunately they were working and we got a fast charge there, but it was expensive -- over $0.50/kWh.
I just did a 500 mile trip with my Model Y and an Aliner Grand Ascape, which has a dry weight of 1650 pounds. Consumption was about 500 watts per mile. Great trailer for a model Y.
The standardization of NACS across the board is really going to open things up for situations like this. We tow with our Honda Crosstour and have been renting various campers from pop-ups to 19' travel trailers. I would love to tow with a Y. It would be quite a different trip since we recently towed a 2,200 lbs pop-up 170 miles only using an indicated half tank of gas, but it would be doable in a Y with proper stops. Great vid.
Remember though that just because other 'brands' of chargers standardize/offer the NACS plugs doesn't mean they are superchargers (or even level 2!) - the NACS plug and cables are just that... Plugs and cables and doesn't mean diddley for how much power the charger is outputting. HOPEFULLY they would be at least 150's though... But I would check on one of the apps like Plugshare to make sure... You don't want to end up waiting 2 or more hours to charge up!
@@djalan2000 of course, but that's the world we live in anyway, having to check charge levels at chargers. The way I look at it is the reliability of Tesla chargers is years ahead of other brands. Europe understood that standardization removes confusion and complexity, though they went with CCS. NACS seems to be a better technology to go with. It was designed from the outset with DC fast in mind. The benefits of using one plug goes without saying, but my hope is that it will force the CCS charger companies to try to match the reliability and availability of high power Superchargers. It would be a huge improvement.
Just did a tow with a 2022 model Y performance. It was about 3,000 lb total trailer weight. Basically I had to charge every 60 to 90 mi. Since it's something I don't do often it was bearable. But basically the regular 9 hour road trip kind of turned into almost 14 to 16 hours. So at the end of the day if you're going to tow often get a 500 mi battery pack. If you don't too often just make sure you're precise and when traveling long distance stay between 20 to 80%. Berri No-ICE.
Going to be towing a 19ft boat. Under normal conditions in Florida (no hills) I guess it would be 3500lbs. How many miles do you think I can go all together on one charge? About 100miles?
@@russkielolI think 100 miles could be achieved if you have 330 mile battery. I like to give myself a good safety net. If you charge fully it is possible I believe to get your hundred miles. But the main thing is to charge completely full. Berri No-ICE.
@@russkielol on a full charge and with that type of weight. I think it's achievable. Totally way to do it is just to try it and wherever you're trying to go make sure around that maybe 30 or 50 mi perimeter there is a charger somewhere. Just in case. Also stay between 50 and 60 mph. If possible.
To see how your trip compares to the projection, press the "drive" tab in the energy app. It shows a chart of your projected and actual SoC for your trip
I was going to suggest you get a mobile connector with adapters. Good idea, believe me. We pulled a 21' trailer with our Model X, and being able to charge up at any campsite no matter the hookup, is essential. We found that the trailer cut our range roughly in half, and keeping the speed between 55-65 was also really helpful. Also, using the backup camera with the side cameras activated is really helpful while driving. And especially at a Tesla charger, don't block other chargers...just park the trailer, disconnect the hitch, charge up and reconnect. It really is pretty easy to do.
Between January and July of 2021, I drove to and through all lower 48 states, while towing a 19' Casita camp trailer with my Model Y. I put about 25,000 miles on the car and only had to be towed once to a charge station. I learned a lot on the first 10k of the trip. One, you can travel with FSD while towing. The car will disable FSD but all you have to do is turn it back on. You will notice a few things that are strange but all in all I drove with FSD maybe 80% My MY did come with all the adapters and I used them every night I camped that had 50amp service. If it didn't, I adjusted my charge time to fit before or after the night at the RV park. Charging via 120v is agonizingly SLOW!! I did have to spend a couple of nights at a little 4 vehicle park in Hankinson, ND plugged into a 120v outlet. I charged one day and 2 night to have enough to make it north to Fargo. After the first night of 120v charging, I could have dropped the trailer and run ahead to fully charge the car but wasn't in any big hurry, plus there was a great little restaurant just across the street that had the friendliest people! I did make a second trip last summer from Brownsville Texas, up to Tacoma, Washington, so I've now have about 33,000 towing miles on the Tesla MY and did abuse the batteries many times during that 33K miles. Two years ago, there were even fewer charge stations out there than there is now. I found I had to charge to 100% and run the battery down to 0% just to make it to the charger. There were no CCS adapters available but did buy a Chademo adapter for $600 bucks!! That was just shy of being a waste of money as most of the time, the non Tesla charger either didn't work or were so slow to charge. Most of the time I was on the phone with the charging company trying to get the damn things to work!! The trip last year I had the CCS adapter and still had to fight the with the piss poor system the non Tesla charge station offered. Sorry about rambling on...... I'm an old guy so cut me some slack!! Life will be better when my Cybertruck gets delivered!
@@mikeplncrzy I could go about 100 miles on a charge. 2 years ago there were even fewer chargers than now so I was running down to 0% or almost and then charge to 100% if the next charger was 100 miles. Best I ever got was 120 miles. Because of stressing the battery so often my range is now only about 275 miles. Would I buy a Tesla again? You bet!! I would even make the trip again knowing it could be hard on the battery. You only go around once in life and it was a great adventure! LOL Would love to do it again when I get my Cybertruck. It will have better enough range the I could get a little bigger trailer as I have a new sweety in my life and the Cacita is too small for the two of us. I did a trip from Brownsville TX to Tacoma WA and it was just too close in the little trailer..... sorry for rambling along..... it gets that way when you get 75.......
What about regenerative breaking. My trailers brakes kick in any time the car indicates it's braking. I needed to disconnect the trailer from the power plug just to get it to roll. Any experience with this?
@adrian8967 I have a curt brake controller that I can change the setting so the trailer brakes don't kick in right away, so the Tesla's regen brakinging can use the extra weight to charge the battery. This also helps not burn up my trailer brakes as fast. Less wear, more energy. Win win!
I towed a 20ft boat which was near the maximum rating of my Model Y (3500 lbs) from RI to Annapolis MD; about 365 miles. The MY handled it perfectly but the range impact was substantial. I had to stop about every 130 miles or about 2x my normal frequency. The availability of Tesla superchargers on the Rt95 corridor is excellent. I wish there were more pull through stalls and some were placed in a way that if you used them, your trailer was in a travel lane of the parking lot. I had to block some open chargers a couple of times but it wasn’t a problem because they weren’t busy. I only had to unhitch once to get a charge. As a longtime SUV owner, my normal hitch use is occasional, mostly for bike racks and local boat launching and recovery. The MY is great for that. Over the last 20 years, I’ve probably only towed over 150 miles at a time twice. If I had to do long range towing frequently, I might reconsider. Unfortunately, most EV skeptics, look at the rare, long distance, heavy load use case and say EVs are not good. I will never go back to a nonEV.
@@GrzegorzDurda The total trip was $93 or about $19 per charge. I stopped about every 80 miles because I didn’t want to go below 25% and wanted to pick the newer faster chargers to make for more frequent quicker stops.
I think that’s true in most cases. However, going up hill weight matters a lot, though some of it comes back on the downhill. Make sure there’s enough charge to get to the top of the mountain before starting the ascent.
I have to say that needing to charge every 60 - 80 miles with a small low camper is pretty impractical for most people. This highlights just how far battery technology needs to go still. Very informative video thanks.
I had the same A-frame camper but without the front storage platform. We towed it with a Jeep Wrangler 4dr that got 14mpg towing vs 18mpg normally for approx 25% range loss. It looks like this Y and other EV's I've seen reported doing light towing lose about 50% range.
Yes, I would say about a 60-50% drop in range is expected. Just for comparison's sake, the Jeep gets 1,800 Wh/mi at 18mpg and 2400 Wh/mi at 14mpg, so the Tesla at its worst when towing (700 Wh/mi) is still vastly more efficient from an energy perspective. Assuming 33.7 kWh/gallon of gas. Thanks for the comparison!
@@alexkno11 Regarding your formula. You have not considered the losses with ICE from heat and high Jeep mechanical friction. I think your gas equivalent may be off? Your number may be way too conservative. Making the Tesla even more efficient.
So the 1800 Wh/mi at 18mpg comes from looking at the energy content in 1 gallon of gas. Using the EPA's number of 33.7 kilowatt-hours per gallon, we can divide by miles per gallon to get kilowatt-hours per mile. This formula works for the Tesla too: 33.7 kWh/mi divided by 120 MPGe = 280 Wh/mi which is what shows up in the Energy screen. I guess the inherent inefficiencies of the vehicle come through in the poor conversion efficiency of that 33.7kWh of energy into "miles". Hopefully that makes sense!
I think that front storage platform adds significant aero drag, because of both the platform itself and the large gap it introduces between the rear of the car and the front of the camper’s body. If all other things are equal, there’s no rational reason why an EV would lose any more range than an ICE vehicle.
That trailer has electric brakes. Tell us about your brake controller. I tow a similar but smaller pop-up trailer (1800lbs.).Buying the wiring pigtail from Tesla was easy and the part about CAN$5.80, so cheep. Finding a good mounting method for the brake controller was a bit tricky. I used a heavy duty Velcro strip, but the adhesive doesn’t stick to the lower dash material very well. For those out there, check your local regulations and the owners manual, always use your electric brakes when you have them. It’s way better, safer and more comfortable knowing you can stop on hills and mountains.
I appreciate the tip, I didn't realize the trailer had electric brakes. Will definitely invest in the controller if I decide to purchase a trailer. Thanks for watching!
You mentioned “avoid changing speed during the hills, you’ll end up wasting energy”. Not sure what that is referring to, but actually if you allow the car to slow down some going up the hill (safe as traffic allows), then allow the car to speed up down the hill, that will actually net out more energy then cruise control since regen braking isn’t 100% efficient
I suppose it depends on the size of the hill. I would agree with you in the case of steep hills, but most hills on our trip weren't big enough to cause us to regen. The "constant speed" philosophy is one I adopted from my solar car racing days; I was told that the varying aerodynamic losses that come with variable speed exceed the gains from "absorbing" those hills with the accelerator pedal. Interesting physics experiment for sure!
Air Stream Trailers made a prototype camper with its own battery and motors to assist with towing. I would imagine its a relatively easy install to retrofit any trailer with hub motors and a small battery pack, to improve towing range.
@zeta2078 the average Airstream is close to 200k. An electric "protptype" would obviously be more. I'm talking about a relatively simple conversion using hub motors and a small, likely used battery pack. The cost has more to do with the original trailer than anything else.
I tow an ALiner a frame trailer with my Y. It's 2100lbs dry, 2300 loaded and around 2500 with a full tank of water. My general rule is to take my avg rate of speed and put a 0 behind it for my Wh/m.
That's a great tip! Curious how you're able to use autopilot when towing? My car has the factory hitch and it knows when I plug the trailer lights in that something is being towed and disables autopilot. Probably for the best!
The car will still let you use TACC if you pull down on the stalk once. Technically not AP, I guess I should differentiate between the two. It does OK on the interstates, but will brake a lot on 2 lane highways.
I am interested in towing a camper with my Model Y LR, so this is a great video for me. I wonder why you used your Chevy Bolt charge cable? With a Tesla UMC you could have charged at 32 A at 240 V and be fully charged by morning. Edit: I should have watched at bit more before commenting, as my question was addressed well. 😀
Great video, I’ve been wanting to see someone do a long trip towing a pop up camper with an F150 lightning. I have a 2022 lariat Extended range and I think this type of camper would be perfect for long trips towing to camp sites. Seems like your model Y was getting around 1.8-2 mi/kWh (which is how my truck measures efficiency) and I would say my truck would get at least 2 mi/@kwh pulling that camper since the aero factor would me even smaller behind the larger F150 body. This would mean I could go around 200 miles between charging stops driving 65 mph.
I was surprised that your Tesla had the towing capacity for that. According to Tesla, the towing capacity for a model Y is 3,500 lbs. which is plenty for a typical popup camper trailer. Cool.
Just a note you can disable tow mode and that will allow you to use autopilot (for such a small trailer it should not be an issue), no difference it still does really well calculating your range. I did a tow with a tent trailer over 3000KM over 6 mountain passes and it was great. My trailer had a lot less frontal area as yours, I averaged about 390watt per mile. My average stops were about 25 minutes, had to educate Tesla drivers that did not have a trailer using a trailer spot twice, I was just informing them. Had to unhook trailer 5 times on that trip.
Thanks for a good video. I noticed you were showing us the "Instant range" in the energy app, which isn't averaging over the selected distance. From manual: Consumption: Display how much energy Model Y has consumed over the past 10, 25 or 50 km. Touch Instant Range to adjust the projected range estimation. Instant Range uses only the latest few data points to estimate the projected range. Touch Average Range to use the past 10, 25 or 50 km of energy consumption to provide a more accurate projected range.
Too bad Tesla does not offer Vehicle to Load and / or Vehicle to Grid in the current vehicle line. I think it's coming in 2025. It would be great to be able to plug the vehicle in a 120 or 240 voltage EVSE and be able to power your camper or RV via an outlet on the vehicle so you could do bolt with one plug.
I know 😞 I wish it had V2L too. I've been tempted to wire in a 2000W inverter to the low-voltage car battery, but I heard that can void your warranty if Tesla catches on to you using the car for stationary storage. I can't blame them; they're warrantying the battery for miles, not cycles. And they're in the Powerwall business too...
@alexkno11 True. I bought a November DMM3, then a DMLRY in May 2022, and have a Cybertruck on order since two weeks after the reveal in 2019. My next vehicle will have V to L minimum, or I will be switching brands. The Chevy Silverado electric looks really good with the pass, though, for camping, and it has V to L now. Great video for towing.
I've thought about getting a model y and would pull my fishing boat but man the logistics of just pulling it to N Minnesota are rough when you only have maybe 100 miles of range. I have a model 3 now and even headwind can really hurt consumption. It just shows how aero is so important with EVs and trailers kill that--even bike racks kill it.
Neat to see a towing specific video. Have you done camping with just the car? Way easier to manage as compared to towing a trailer. Not sure what your life is like and if that even is a possibility for you, but way easier to manage than a trailer and all of the stuff that goes with it (600+ wh/mile 😬)
I haven't tried car camping in the Tesla yet, but I'm definitely eager to try it! This weekend was so busy that the camper was just a place to sleep; if the Tesla can fulfill that need then it'd save me a ton of hassle!
great video my guy i think tesla should deffinetly build some more trailer chargers especially out west. I live in denver itd be awesome if they even made destination campgrounds
we've done this many times with our model x. same major pros and cons except the air suspension improves stability, the more powerful motors can generate a greater stopping force, and it tows it can still pull faster than most cars with the trailer attached. the only problems are 1. not much range 2. not enough pull through chargers. because of these issues, if the trip say's it'll be 4 hours, i expect to be there in 8 hours. this plays true with going over 10 hours. and yes, we have gone on a 12 hour trip that ended up being 22 hours of driving with a trailer, making about 1 stops. while gas and towing was only 16 hours total with a convenient 5 stops just for safe measure, while taking lunch stops. ev's are fantastic in every single way. the thing they need to get good at is towing, i expect a lot from the cybertruck. anyone can make a good ev truck that doesnt have to do truck things. but the moment you add a trailer, you need to improve the infostructure to support it, and be able to not loss a massive chunk of your range
Great video, I learned that I'll use my ICE SUV for trips like this. I just don't see the Tesla for this use because of the drain on the battery and the amount of time it takes to wait and charge for a trip. I love my Y but its use is for daily local travel and short trips. I like have both, EV and ICE vehicles.
It seems tense to me... all the planning and calculating as to how far you can make it, being careful with your speed, etc. etc. I'll drive my F150 with a V8 getting 22 mpg and filling up when I need to in any town in about 10 minutes.
Agreed, regarding convenience (for now anyway). But if the world gets serious about climate change, there will have to be an escalating carbon price, eventually making your V8 prohibitively expensive to operate. Enjoy it while you can.
@@barry28907 Market driven is the best approach to change. Climate change is complete and utter BS. Where I’m sitting right now, there were glaciers 10,000 years ago. Do you think SUV’s made them melt? There is nothing any of us can do about the weather. If you think otherwise, you must be God himself.
Congratulations on the 1/2 marathon. I am sorry your girl friend is a Packers fan. I hear their is medication for that now a days. Maybe buy her a Bears jersey to help out too. Love the vid. Enjoyed watching.
We have that same trailer, and we are getting our first Tesla in a couple weeks. The Tesla will have the tow hitch. Are you saying the 7-pin will work with the electric trailer brakes without any modifications? Or do you also need to get a Brake Controller installed, so you can adjust the gain?
Hello Fellow Minnesotan! I just found your channel and subscribed. Turns out I was pulling a U-Haul trailer Jul 8th for 169 miles around the Twin Cities that used 97.25 kWh total. Roughly 576.5 Wh/mile. FWIW: my U-Haul 5×9 Utility Trailer with Ramp had an empty weight of 1,240 pounds. I suspect wind resistance might have more impact on range than weight. The trailer ramp creates a lot of drag. This makes sense based on your energy consumption for your trailer that weighs twice as much as the U-Haul but visually appears to have far less drag because of its profile. BTW - Great choice of music!
Thanks for sharing your experience! Yes, it'll be interesting to continue to compare trailer styles to see how aerodynamics impacts towing efficiency. Thanks for watching!
@@alexkno11 - Just realized I left out some of the drive-time with the trailer. Adding it back in. Changing my comment to reflect the updated results. Basically, 169 miles driven (not 140), Energy Usage 97.25 kWh (not 80), resulting in 576.5 Wh/mile
it is excellent because it is honest. Few reviews manage that little bit - most don't show you the cost of the charge at a super charger nor exactly their average speed and so on. It does show as I exected that EVs do not do very well under load; in contrast to an ICE engine which becomes more efficient as it reaches red line; the EV is always 100 efficient and so all you can do is lose miles. Still it isn't a bad alternative as a sedan doesn't tow that much, an electric pickup truck would be different.
That's the thing with EVs; they're so efficient that they can carry the energy equivalent of ~2 gallons of gas and stretch it out over hundreds of miles. When towing, that 2 gallons of "gas" doesn't go far, but if you have the time (and the charging stations) it's totally manageable and cost effective. Thanks for watching!
Good work. We camp (Tent that attaches to the back with hatch open) with our Model S and our 2 kids and 3 dogs, we can't wait for the Cybertruck though!
I've been curious how that works; do you run the car's air conditioner in that configuration? How does it compare to just tent camping alone? Thanks for watching!
@@alexkno11 Pretty easy set-up, once all the seats are down we can inflate a air mattress, set the Tesla to Camp-Mode and let the AC just roll thru the car and out the back in to the tent where the kids and dogs sleep. Been doing it in the Texas Hill Country this summer and been working great. And of course can't complain leaving with a full charge (easy to do with the NEMA 14-50 adapter at hookup) Always a conversation starter at the campgrounds, lots of curious folks in RV asking questions!
I’m camping now with a Model 3. Didn’t tow anything, tent camping. Still, it’s nice that my entire fuel cost this trip has been $3.70 because I can recharge to 100% each night (LFP battery) at the campground with the Mobile Connector. And really I didn’t even have to pay that $3.70, I could have made it all the way here but Chargeway said to supercharge a bit just in case so, I did. And really I shouldn’t have to charge going home (Chargeway says to stop to add 8% to arrive home with 15%… so I should be able to arrive home with 7% or so without stopping.) I’ll okay that by ear on the way home. I’m considering getting a Model Y with a hitch and a teardrop trailer at some point. If we can hack tent camping then a teardrop would be a massive upgrade! The one I’m looking at is under 1000 lbs total gross weight. There’s be an efficiency hit but seems like it should be a bit less than your trip. Only one way to find out!
looks like the trailer can wiegh between 2000lb and 3000lb depending on how much stuff you take with it. Model Y should be good for a 3000lb trailer. It'd be interesting to see if the % changes in energy consumption is matched by the same changes in mpg for an ICE car on tghe same route.
Great video. You were lucky to find charging spots that were open to allow you to block off several charging lanes. As more and more people drive EV’s you might not be so lucky. You’ve shown it can be done if one has the time to wait for 30 minutes to charge. For me it seems like a lot of stress wondering if one can find a place to charge. Maybe as the number of charging stations increase, the stress level will lessen. Overall, your video content was excellent and to the point.
I appreciate the feedback! I think it'll be easier when more Superchargers come online (especially ones will pull-through stations) it'll become easier. I will say the trip home was a lot less stressful than the way up.
I actually didn't see any ICE cars blocking a charger; they had the Level 2 chargers spaced out under the solar panels so there were parking spaces for other cars. Hopefully we see more of these charging lots in the future!
I would not recommend using cruise control when towing (for most vehicles) just because it uses to much energy or fuel trying to maintain speed up hills.
Realize that your ball mount exceeds Tesla's max rise dimension of .75 inches. My MY manual says “The Model Y hitch receiver supports a ball mount with a length of up to 8.5” (22 cm) and a rise of up to 0.75” (2 cm). Do not use any type of drop ball mount that does not meet these requirements”. It’s a concern I've had about the usefulness of the MY for towing. For all of the trailers I’ve found, using the correct mount results in an unlevel trailer. Nice video of a nice place. 👍
Thank you for the tip! I wonder what's better; meeting the ball mount requirements or having a level trailer. 🤔 I'll definitely be considering these things if/when I decide to purchase something.
The dry weight of this trailer is 2,408 lbs. There were probably a couple hundred pounds of miscellaneous items in the trailer too (like a grill). Thanks for watching!
Great question... I'd try that if it were my trailer, but it was a rental. Definitely interested in seeing how others have "eco-modded" their trailers to improve aerodynamics.
They're great vehicles! Have you ever been to a www.rochesterelectricvehicles.com/ event? I might try to make it to the one on August 26th, would be cool to see you there!
You lost 45% of the battery in just 62 miles; driving on near flat terrain?! And towing you’ll end up blocking charge stations?! Then it took an hr to charge 56%. You’re lucky you could charge at all at the RV park. Thanks for the detailed experimental trip; so many TH-camrs fail to State all the pertinent info. It’s clear the Tesla is not capable of a serious vacation trip across the USA. The mountains of Colorado would destroy your trip w/ that minimal camper. Even the long grade climb up US 80 heading west from western Nebraska to Wyoming would drain your battery to nothing; you’d spend most of the day charging. Thanks again. Most illuminating
In California, towing trailer speed limit is 55 MPH. I suggest that everyone towing anything not to exceed 60MPH to get best MPG or EPM (electrons per mile).
I guess you know the Tesla portable connector with NEMA 14-50 adapter could definitely reduce the Rube-Goldberging around @6:40, might be safer and possibly faster, too, but I can understand how the $230 bucks for the Tesla solution keeps the Bolt connector in your livery...
I didn't use one. The trailer had electric brakes, but I didn't have a brake controller and technically I was legal without one since the trailer weighed less than 3,000 lbs. If I end up getting a larger trailer I'll definitely look into it and post a video about it! The Tesla towed just fine without trailer brakes though; there were only a couple times that the mechanical brakes needed to kick in, the rest of the stopping was handled by regenerative braking.
Good video. Wish you'd shown us the interior of the cool trailer you were pulling, tho. When you were going up that 650 ft incline, did you feel the Y being stressed at all? Or was it just the high level of energy consumption that made it apparent the car was working 'extra hard'?
The hill seemed quite manageable to the car. I went slower to "take it easy" on it, but it'd be really interesting to watch battery temps during the climb to see how hard it was really working. Yes, I should have showed off the camper a bit more; I'll keep that in mind the next time I rent one!
Watching this video has me looking at A-frame pop-up trailers to tow with our Model YLR. I got the factory tow hitch but I'm wondering if I need to do the added mod for using trailer brakes. In the video you mentioned trailer brakes when you were plugging in the trailer but nothing about the brake mod for using the trailer brakes that the Model Y owners manual explains. You said with the regen, that the Model Y handles stopping just fine so what setup did you use and is it really necessary to do the brake mod?
I did say it was a decent alternative for someone doing this on occassion on their own time. If you were a commerical truck; this problem of charging becomes problematic; the extra hours can't be easily absorbed. With current lithium technology it isn't very viable. There are billions being spent to find better chemistry so maybe that hurdle will be overcome, hard to bank on maybes though.
I would recommend using the model y in camping mode I got a custom mattress and turned the model y into the camper and got a separate 10x10 inflatable tent to use with a eco flow solar generator and a portable refrigerator/ freezer brought an electric skillet and a keurig. I camped for a week in lakeland Fl with a 3000 mile round trip from Buffalo NY - total cost was $240 vs if I towed my camper with my previous F150 it would have been $2200 in gas alone with an extra stop each way. This gives you the normal range and the ability to use a campground or a hotel to stop at, not to mention the ability to supercharge normally
Thanks for an excellent, informative video. Can you please help me witht he tool that you used to create the map animation with your car and photo :) Thanks!
Thank you! 😄 I got the map from Google Maps (just a screenshot) and used GIMP to superimpose a our faces onto a car clipart icon from Google Images. I used Davinci Resolve as the video editor and dropped the images layer by layer onto the timeline. Then you can create the illusion of animation by moving the map Position around. There are lots of good videos on how to move images and videos around in Davinci. Hope that helps!
Hi fellow Minnesotaing this is John from Osseo Minnesota I had a model y performance for 3 years now no tow hitch your toll video on the model y interesting on the Range you mentioned the plug is for lights and brakes does the model y have a brake controller built into it?
Hi John! The Model Y I have came with the factory installed tow hitch which includes the North American trailer connector on the hitch. There's a spot under the steering wheel to plug in a brake controller, but the car doesn't come with one natively. www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-F5C80FF5-8DE3-4750-8BAF-0DCC0CFA0C5C.html#TRAILERBRAKES
When you get your mobile connector, when using the 15 40 plug cut your amps back to 24. Most campground wiring cannot hold 40 amps. How do I know this?
I did a M Y road trip without towing, with a large roof pod, and was regularly in the 500+ wh/mile consumption. There were four kids and two adults in the car, but our full load didn’t weigh near as much as a pop up trailer, I don’t think. We aere also doing 80+ mph for a lot of the trip though. Aero vs. mass is interesting.
Interesting! It'll be neat to see how other trailers impact efficiency. I'm a firm believer in aerodynamics; very curious to try out a teardrop trailer.
Possibly putting stuff on the roof has greater impact on aero than pulling a low profile trailer. Larger frontal area means punching a bigger hole through the air. But the trailer in this video was also really long, which should be a negative also.
Loved it! It's almost like having a hard-walled tent. Would have appreciated having it for a longer weekend but the A-frame camper style is definitely one I'll be keeping on my short list. Only thing I wish it had was a toilet/shower combo, but I think they make ones with those included.
Thanks for posting ranges & percentages rather than just Wh/mi. As someone who doesn't own a Tesla yet, seeing range & percentages is a lot more helpful.
this makes no sense. Percentage varies for every battery. with Wh/mi you can easy calculate the range for every battery size. easier is mi/kwh :D
Honestly I wish Tesla used miles/KWH instead s lot easier to understand since its similar to mpg
Along time ago in a different but similar context, I asked a more experienced trailer-er/tow-er how he handled towing issues (up hills, down hills, worse energy efficiency, etc). He settled it for me by saying to simply lower my expectations. The trailer with cargo drastically alters the power-to-weight ratio for ascending, the brake-to-weight ratio for descending, the energy used, the heat dispelled. Where I would normally drive a sedan at 70mph, I would normally drive a trailer at 60mph. There is a bonus to towing at 60mph: the navigational predictability of travelling 1 mile per minute. :)
It's good to have some feedback on this issue from someone outside the standard EV commenting section. You hear so much about the towing topic. The more reports from real time users, the better we can judge the reality of how well these vehicles perform under these conditions.
Thanks for an excellent, informative video. It seems that the dynamics of the Model Y was hardly effected by the trailer which, assuming safety is a concern, is a huge plus. All the best.
That was a fun video that I enjoyed very much! Thank You! I can’t wait to go camping with my Y. I’ve liked and subscribed.
Always have been skeptical about EVs and towing but you did it right and get a little trailer and it;s not so bad.
Just stumbled upon your video! It's directly relevant to my camper and prospective Tesla purchase. I have an Aliner Ranger 12 that would be towed by any Model Y I got. That’s a 1600 lb dry trailer. Our current tow vehicle needs refueling every 170-200 miles doing 65 mph. Those always entail at least a 15 minute stop for stretching and snacks, so this wouldn't be too much different from what we do now. Thanks for the informative video!
I just towed the *smallest* U-Haul trailer from the DFW area to Las Vegas, NV, about 1200 miles.
Despite the trailer being the smallest available and being very lightly loaded, We saw about the same energy consumption as you did, about 500 to 520Wh/mile.
Apart from hitting nearly every charger on the way, the Model Y towed like a dream. Very capable and very stable (we hit some heavy crosswinds in New Mexico and Arizona, and the air off the semis on I-40 tended to blow cars around a bit.)
Range and battery level predictions at each recharging stop were spot-on. If the car said we'd be at 3% at the next tsop, we almost always were. Never lower than the prediction, but sometimes higher.
When navigating to a charger, the navigation system will tell you what the predicted charge level is and updates that in real-time. Very handy. On one occasion, we were driving 75-80mph and our predicted pwecentage dropped below 5%. The nav system warned us and asked us to slow down. By slowing down, we were able to get the predicted average back up and used that trick througout the trip. We'd also charge and extra 5-10% at each stop to either stretch our drive to another charger, or morre often, drive a little faster to keep up with traffic on I-40.
The only blemish was in Flagstaff. Tesla's nav system insisted on routing us to a charger at a Courtyard by Marriott. It's a 12-bay v2 charger with ZERO amenities and was packed every time I was routed there (2 stalls free with several cars en route.) But less than 7 miles away, right off I-40 is a brand new charger at a Circle K. It's got 24 bays, all brand-new v3 chargers. Half are back-in, and half are nose-in and one is pull-through! MUCH better than the one we were routed to. In fact, while we were there, three other cars from the Marriott showedup for faster charging.
Almost all the trip was done using Tesla Superchargers. The one exception was Williams, AZ. That was our stay for the night when we visited the Grand Canyon. We had to charge twice there and the only fast-charging option was Electrify America. Fortunately they were working and we got a fast charge there, but it was expensive -- over $0.50/kWh.
Very helpful for real world experience. I would definitely get the built n hitch on the Model Y.. The energy consumption graph is very useful.
I just did a 500 mile trip with my Model Y and an Aliner Grand Ascape, which has a dry weight of 1650 pounds. Consumption was about 500 watts per mile. Great trailer for a model Y.
The standardization of NACS across the board is really going to open things up for situations like this. We tow with our Honda Crosstour and have been renting various campers from pop-ups to 19' travel trailers. I would love to tow with a Y. It would be quite a different trip since we recently towed a 2,200 lbs pop-up 170 miles only using an indicated half tank of gas, but it would be doable in a Y with proper stops. Great vid.
Remember though that just because other 'brands' of chargers standardize/offer the NACS plugs doesn't mean they are superchargers (or even level 2!) - the NACS plug and cables are just that... Plugs and cables and doesn't mean diddley for how much power the charger is outputting. HOPEFULLY they would be at least 150's though... But I would check on one of the apps like Plugshare to make sure... You don't want to end up waiting 2 or more hours to charge up!
@@djalan2000 of course, but that's the world we live in anyway, having to check charge levels at chargers. The way I look at it is the reliability of Tesla chargers is years ahead of other brands. Europe understood that standardization removes confusion and complexity, though they went with CCS. NACS seems to be a better technology to go with. It was designed from the outset with DC fast in mind. The benefits of using one plug goes without saying, but my hope is that it will force the CCS charger companies to try to match the reliability and availability of high power Superchargers. It would be a huge improvement.
Great video! I have the same camper so this is literally what I was looking for.
Just did a tow with a 2022 model Y performance. It was about 3,000 lb total trailer weight. Basically I had to charge every 60 to 90 mi. Since it's something I don't do often it was bearable. But basically the regular 9 hour road trip kind of turned into almost 14 to 16 hours. So at the end of the day if you're going to tow often get a 500 mi battery pack. If you don't too often just make sure you're precise and when traveling long distance stay between 20 to 80%. Berri No-ICE.
Going to be towing a 19ft boat. Under normal conditions in Florida (no hills) I guess it would be 3500lbs. How many miles do you think I can go all together on one charge? About 100miles?
@@russkielolI think 100 miles could be achieved if you have 330 mile battery. I like to give myself a good safety net. If you charge fully it is possible I believe to get your hundred miles. But the main thing is to charge completely full. Berri No-ICE.
@@wadafruit so you think 100 is kinda pushing it? I was hoping 100 without freaking out 😂
@@russkielol on a full charge and with that type of weight. I think it's achievable. Totally way to do it is just to try it and wherever you're trying to go make sure around that maybe 30 or 50 mi perimeter there is a charger somewhere. Just in case. Also stay between 50 and 60 mph. If possible.
Nice to see you showing a different kind of EV experience than other channels.
To see how your trip compares to the projection, press the "drive" tab in the energy app. It shows a chart of your projected and actual SoC for your trip
I was going to suggest you get a mobile connector with adapters. Good idea, believe me. We pulled a 21' trailer with our Model X, and being able to charge up at any campsite no matter the hookup, is essential. We found that the trailer cut our range roughly in half, and keeping the speed between 55-65 was also really helpful. Also, using the backup camera with the side cameras activated is really helpful while driving. And especially at a Tesla charger, don't block other chargers...just park the trailer, disconnect the hitch, charge up and reconnect. It really is pretty easy to do.
Between January and July of 2021, I drove to and through all lower 48 states, while towing a 19' Casita camp trailer with my Model Y. I put about 25,000 miles on the car and only had to be towed once to a charge station. I learned a lot on the first 10k of the trip. One, you can travel with FSD while towing. The car will disable FSD but all you have to do is turn it back on. You will notice a few things that are strange but all in all I drove with FSD maybe 80% My MY did come with all the adapters and I used them every night I camped that had 50amp service. If it didn't, I adjusted my charge time to fit before or after the night at the RV park. Charging via 120v is agonizingly SLOW!! I did have to spend a couple of nights at a little 4 vehicle park in Hankinson, ND plugged into a 120v outlet. I charged one day and 2 night to have enough to make it north to Fargo. After the first night of 120v charging, I could have dropped the trailer and run ahead to fully charge the car but wasn't in any big hurry, plus there was a great little restaurant just across the street that had the friendliest people!
I did make a second trip last summer from Brownsville Texas, up to Tacoma, Washington, so I've now have about 33,000 towing miles on the Tesla MY and did abuse the batteries many times during that 33K miles. Two years ago, there were even fewer charge stations out there than there is now. I found I had to charge to 100% and run the battery down to 0% just to make it to the charger. There were no CCS adapters available but did buy a Chademo adapter for $600 bucks!! That was just shy of being a waste of money as most of the time, the non Tesla charger either didn't work or were so slow to charge. Most of the time I was on the phone with the charging company trying to get the damn things to work!! The trip last year I had the CCS adapter and still had to fight the with the piss poor system the non Tesla charge station offered.
Sorry about rambling on...... I'm an old guy so cut me some slack!! Life will be better when my Cybertruck gets delivered!
What was your wh/m towing the casita? At what speed?
@@mikeplncrzy I could go about 100 miles on a charge. 2 years ago there were even fewer chargers than now so I was running down to 0% or almost and then charge to 100% if the next charger was 100 miles. Best I ever got was 120 miles. Because of stressing the battery so often my range is now only about 275 miles. Would I buy a Tesla again? You bet!! I would even make the trip again knowing it could be hard on the battery. You only go around once in life and it was a great adventure! LOL Would love to do it again when I get my Cybertruck. It will have better enough range the I could get a little bigger trailer as I have a new sweety in my life and the Cacita is too small for the two of us. I did a trip from Brownsville TX to Tacoma WA and it was just too close in the little trailer..... sorry for rambling along..... it gets that way when you get 75.......
What about regenerative breaking. My trailers brakes kick in any time the car indicates it's braking. I needed to disconnect the trailer from the power plug just to get it to roll. Any experience with this?
Good info, TY
@adrian8967 I have a curt brake controller that I can change the setting so the trailer brakes don't kick in right away, so the Tesla's regen brakinging can use the extra weight to charge the battery. This also helps not burn up my trailer brakes as fast. Less wear, more energy. Win win!
Thanks for the great video. Thanks for showing detailed info on your towing experience!
Such an informative video. Well documented, very clear and understandable. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the positive feedback & for watching 😄
You’re burying the lead! Great job running the 1/2 Grandma’s!
Thanks Ken! 😄
That was a nice trip. Looking forward to future camping videos!😀
I towed a 20ft boat which was near the maximum rating of my Model Y (3500 lbs) from RI to Annapolis MD; about 365 miles. The MY handled it perfectly but the range impact was substantial. I had to stop about every 130 miles or about 2x my normal frequency. The availability of Tesla superchargers on the Rt95 corridor is excellent. I wish there were more pull through stalls and some were placed in a way that if you used them, your trailer was in a travel lane of the parking lot. I had to block some open chargers a couple of times but it wasn’t a problem because they weren’t busy. I only had to unhitch once to get a charge.
As a longtime SUV owner, my normal hitch use is occasional, mostly for bike racks and local boat launching and recovery. The MY is great for that. Over the last 20 years, I’ve probably only towed over 150 miles at a time twice. If I had to do long range towing frequently, I might reconsider. Unfortunately, most EV skeptics, look at the rare, long distance, heavy load use case and say EVs are not good. I will never go back to a nonEV.
How much was each charge with the charger fees?
@@GrzegorzDurda The total trip was $93 or about $19 per charge. I stopped about every 80 miles because I didn’t want to go below 25% and wanted to pick the newer faster chargers to make for more frequent quicker stops.
I am with you on that last sentence. 💯
@@Paul-GrnHil That's interesting as my X5 can tow this about $80 for that distance with no stops.
@@GrzegorzDurda no doubt. The best use for an EV is stop and go light duty towing
Seems aero more critical to range than towing weight with EVs great video thanks mate 😁👍
I think that’s true in most cases. However, going up hill weight matters a lot, though some of it comes back on the downhill. Make sure there’s enough charge to get to the top of the mountain before starting the ascent.
I have to say that needing to charge every 60 - 80 miles with a small low camper is pretty impractical for most people. This highlights just how far battery technology needs to go still. Very informative video thanks.
I believe that this was the Stand Range Model. I could be wrong... If it was an LR model should have gone at least 200 Miles on a charge.
It's a Long Range model... I'll update the description with that key detail!
I had the same A-frame camper but without the front storage platform. We towed it with a Jeep Wrangler 4dr that got 14mpg towing vs 18mpg normally for approx 25% range loss. It looks like this Y and other EV's I've seen reported doing light towing lose about 50% range.
Yes, I would say about a 60-50% drop in range is expected. Just for comparison's sake, the Jeep gets 1,800 Wh/mi at 18mpg and 2400 Wh/mi at 14mpg, so the Tesla at its worst when towing (700 Wh/mi) is still vastly more efficient from an energy perspective. Assuming 33.7 kWh/gallon of gas. Thanks for the comparison!
@@alexkno11 Regarding your formula. You have not considered the losses with ICE from heat and high Jeep mechanical friction. I think your gas equivalent may be off? Your number may be way too conservative. Making the Tesla even more efficient.
So the 1800 Wh/mi at 18mpg comes from looking at the energy content in 1 gallon of gas. Using the EPA's number of 33.7 kilowatt-hours per gallon, we can divide by miles per gallon to get kilowatt-hours per mile. This formula works for the Tesla too: 33.7 kWh/mi divided by 120 MPGe = 280 Wh/mi which is what shows up in the Energy screen. I guess the inherent inefficiencies of the vehicle come through in the poor conversion efficiency of that 33.7kWh of energy into "miles". Hopefully that makes sense!
I think that front storage platform adds significant aero drag, because of both the platform itself and the large gap it introduces between the rear of the car and the front of the camper’s body. If all other things are equal, there’s no rational reason why an EV would lose any more range than an ICE vehicle.
That trailer has electric brakes. Tell us about your brake controller. I tow a similar but smaller pop-up trailer (1800lbs.).Buying the wiring pigtail from Tesla was easy and the part about CAN$5.80, so cheep.
Finding a good mounting method for the brake controller was a bit tricky. I used a heavy duty Velcro strip, but the adhesive doesn’t stick to the lower dash material very well.
For those out there, check your local regulations and the owners manual, always use your electric brakes when you have them. It’s way better, safer and more comfortable knowing you can stop on hills and mountains.
I appreciate the tip, I didn't realize the trailer had electric brakes. Will definitely invest in the controller if I decide to purchase a trailer. Thanks for watching!
The fact that he didn’t use a brake controller is crazy to me. I also noticed no sway control device was used. Amateur hour.
@theschrom These little popup trailers don't need sway control. The tongue weight is high enough where it's not an issue.
The ray ramano of the Tesla youtube community. ♥️♥️🤣🤣. Subed
Glad you liked it! 😆👍
Very good production lvl :) thnx for efforts!!
You mentioned “avoid changing speed during the hills, you’ll end up wasting energy”. Not sure what that is referring to, but actually if you allow the car to slow down some going up the hill (safe as traffic allows), then allow the car to speed up down the hill, that will actually net out more energy then cruise control since regen braking isn’t 100% efficient
I suppose it depends on the size of the hill. I would agree with you in the case of steep hills, but most hills on our trip weren't big enough to cause us to regen. The "constant speed" philosophy is one I adopted from my solar car racing days; I was told that the varying aerodynamic losses that come with variable speed exceed the gains from "absorbing" those hills with the accelerator pedal. Interesting physics experiment for sure!
Air Stream Trailers made a prototype camper with its own battery and motors to assist with towing. I would imagine its a relatively easy install to retrofit any trailer with hub motors and a small battery pack, to improve towing range.
And to act as a fantastic energy store when you arrive… plug into an RV point and then run induction hob/oven and heat pumps…
Price will most likely be north of $200K!
@zeta2078 the average Airstream is close to 200k. An electric "protptype" would obviously be more. I'm talking about a relatively simple conversion using hub motors and a small, likely used battery pack. The cost has more to do with the original trailer than anything else.
I tow an ALiner a frame trailer with my Y. It's 2100lbs dry, 2300 loaded and around 2500 with a full tank of water.
My general rule is to take my avg rate of speed and put a 0 behind it for my Wh/m.
Also, I'd be careful with AP. I get a lot of phantom breaking on mine and it's terrifying with a trailer.
That's a great tip! Curious how you're able to use autopilot when towing? My car has the factory hitch and it knows when I plug the trailer lights in that something is being towed and disables autopilot. Probably for the best!
The car will still let you use TACC if you pull down on the stalk once. Technically not AP, I guess I should differentiate between the two.
It does OK on the interstates, but will brake a lot on 2 lane highways.
Wind also affects efficiency a great deal. I had one leg between Tremonton, UT and Burley, ID where I did 65 in an 80 and ended up with 850 Wh/m.
I died at the daisy chained adapter. the overall design efficiency through the roof lol
I am interested in towing a camper with my Model Y LR, so this is a great video for me. I wonder why you used your Chevy Bolt charge cable? With a Tesla UMC you could have charged at 32 A at 240 V and be fully charged by morning.
Edit: I should have watched at bit more before commenting, as my question was addressed well. 😀
Thanks for the work putting together the video.
Great video, I’ve been wanting to see someone do a long trip towing a pop up camper with an F150 lightning. I have a 2022 lariat Extended range and I think this type of camper would be perfect for long trips towing to camp sites. Seems like your model Y was getting around 1.8-2 mi/kWh (which is how my truck measures efficiency) and I would say my truck would get at least 2 mi/@kwh pulling that camper since the aero factor would me even smaller behind the larger F150 body. This would mean I could go around 200 miles between charging stops driving 65 mph.
So glad you did this video, THANK YOU!!
I drive a Model 3 and have a Stealth Hitch installed. I can put a 400 lb. cap. cargo carrier in the receiver and it barely affects range at all.
I have the same hitch on my Model 3. It’s only rated for 200 lb. Have you really put 400 lbs. on it without problems?
I was surprised that your Tesla had the towing capacity for that. According to Tesla, the towing capacity for a model Y is 3,500 lbs. which is plenty for a typical popup camper trailer. Cool.
I recently towed a small boat with my Y. Cut my mileage 60% I’m keeping my Truck for towing.
it's a 15% increase in consumption from 600 to 690K/m, a good piece though, Interesting to see the reduction in efficiency at around 50% drop.
Just a note you can disable tow mode and that will allow you to use autopilot (for such a small trailer it should not be an issue), no difference it still does really well calculating your range. I did a tow with a tent trailer over 3000KM over 6 mountain passes and it was great. My trailer had a lot less frontal area as yours, I averaged about 390watt per mile. My average stops were about 25 minutes, had to educate Tesla drivers that did not have a trailer using a trailer spot twice, I was just informing them. Had to unhook trailer 5 times on that trip.
What trailer did you use ?
@@SomeTechGuy666 A Kamparoo, compact tent trailer that literally pops up in seconds!
Thanks for a good video. I noticed you were showing us the "Instant range" in the energy app, which isn't averaging over the selected distance. From manual:
Consumption: Display how much energy Model Y has consumed over the past 10, 25 or 50 km.
Touch Instant Range to adjust the projected range estimation. Instant Range uses only the latest few data points to estimate the projected range.
Touch Average Range to use the past 10, 25 or 50 km of energy consumption to provide a more accurate projected range.
You need to use the nema1450 with the Tesla mobile connector. That setup was terrifying! Lol
Too bad Tesla does not offer Vehicle to Load and / or Vehicle to Grid in the current vehicle line. I think it's coming in 2025. It would be great to be able to plug the vehicle in a 120 or 240 voltage EVSE and be able to power your camper or RV via an outlet on the vehicle so you could do bolt with one plug.
I know 😞 I wish it had V2L too. I've been tempted to wire in a 2000W inverter to the low-voltage car battery, but I heard that can void your warranty if Tesla catches on to you using the car for stationary storage. I can't blame them; they're warrantying the battery for miles, not cycles. And they're in the Powerwall business too...
@alexkno11 True. I bought a November DMM3, then a DMLRY in May 2022, and have a Cybertruck on order since two weeks after the reveal in 2019. My next vehicle will have V to L minimum, or I will be switching brands. The Chevy Silverado electric looks really good with the pass, though, for camping, and it has V to L now. Great video for towing.
I've thought about getting a model y and would pull my fishing boat but man the logistics of just pulling it to N Minnesota are rough when you only have maybe 100 miles of range. I have a model 3 now and even headwind can really hurt consumption. It just shows how aero is so important with EVs and trailers kill that--even bike racks kill it.
Neat to see a towing specific video. Have you done camping with just the car? Way easier to manage as compared to towing a trailer. Not sure what your life is like and if that even is a possibility for you, but way easier to manage than a trailer and all of the stuff that goes with it (600+ wh/mile 😬)
I haven't tried car camping in the Tesla yet, but I'm definitely eager to try it! This weekend was so busy that the camper was just a place to sleep; if the Tesla can fulfill that need then it'd save me a ton of hassle!
great video my guy i think tesla should deffinetly build some more trailer chargers especially out west. I live in denver itd be awesome if they even made destination campgrounds
we've done this many times with our model x. same major pros and cons except the air suspension improves stability, the more powerful motors can generate a greater stopping force, and it tows it can still pull faster than most cars with the trailer attached.
the only problems are
1. not much range
2. not enough pull through chargers.
because of these issues, if the trip say's it'll be 4 hours, i expect to be there in 8 hours. this plays true with going over 10 hours. and yes, we have gone on a 12 hour trip that ended up being 22 hours of driving with a trailer, making about 1 stops. while gas and towing was only 16 hours total with a convenient 5 stops just for safe measure, while taking lunch stops.
ev's are fantastic in every single way. the thing they need to get good at is towing, i expect a lot from the cybertruck. anyone can make a good ev truck that doesnt have to do truck things. but the moment you add a trailer, you need to improve the infostructure to support it, and be able to not loss a massive chunk of your range
You didn’t have a trailer brake controller?
Great video, I learned that I'll use my ICE SUV for trips like this. I just don't see the Tesla for this use because of the drain on the battery and the amount of time it takes to wait and charge for a trip. I love my Y but its use is for daily local travel and short trips. I like have both, EV and ICE vehicles.
It seems tense to me... all the planning and calculating as to how far you can make it, being careful with your speed, etc. etc. I'll drive my F150 with a V8 getting 22 mpg and filling up when I need to in any town in about 10 minutes.
Agreed, regarding convenience (for now anyway). But if the world gets serious about climate change, there will have to be an escalating carbon price, eventually making your V8 prohibitively expensive to operate. Enjoy it while you can.
@@barry28907
Market driven is the best approach to change. Climate change is complete and utter BS.
Where I’m sitting right now, there were glaciers 10,000 years ago. Do you think SUV’s made them melt? There is nothing any of us can do about the weather. If you think otherwise, you must be God himself.
This made me giggle. To each their own I guess.
Glad you’re packer fans😊
My S.O. is a Packer fan... I root for the Vikings 😅
@@alexkno11 She’s the smart one!😜
Great video. You definitely need the tesla mobile connecter - camping is so much easier with it.
Great video, thank you for sharing.
Congratulations on the 1/2 marathon. I am sorry your girl friend is a Packers fan. I hear their is medication for that now a days. Maybe buy her a Bears jersey to help out too. Love the vid. Enjoyed watching.
Yes it's a challenge but we get through it 😂 Thanks for watching!
We have that same trailer, and we are getting our first Tesla in a couple weeks. The Tesla will have the tow hitch. Are you saying the 7-pin will work with the electric trailer brakes without any modifications? Or do you also need to get a Brake Controller installed, so you can adjust the gain?
That is one sweet camper!
Yeah it worked out really well! Excited to try different styles, but the A-frame is definitely at the top of my list.
Check out the teardrop trailers. Would be about width and height to match the car.
Hello Fellow Minnesotan! I just found your channel and subscribed. Turns out I was pulling a U-Haul trailer Jul 8th for 169 miles around the Twin Cities that used 97.25 kWh total. Roughly 576.5 Wh/mile.
FWIW: my U-Haul 5×9 Utility Trailer with Ramp had an empty weight of 1,240 pounds. I suspect wind resistance might have more impact on range than weight. The trailer ramp creates a lot of drag. This makes sense based on your energy consumption for your trailer that weighs twice as much as the U-Haul but visually appears to have far less drag because of its profile.
BTW - Great choice of music!
Thanks for sharing your experience! Yes, it'll be interesting to continue to compare trailer styles to see how aerodynamics impacts towing efficiency. Thanks for watching!
@@alexkno11: Question: is "sudoplant" a Linux reference perhaps?
@@alexkno11 - Just realized I left out some of the drive-time with the trailer. Adding it back in. Changing my comment to reflect the updated results. Basically, 169 miles driven (not 140), Energy Usage 97.25 kWh (not 80), resulting in 576.5 Wh/mile
it is excellent because it is honest. Few reviews manage that little bit - most don't show you the cost of the charge at a super charger nor exactly their average speed and so on. It does show as I exected that EVs do not do very well under load; in contrast to an ICE engine which becomes more efficient as it reaches red line; the EV is always 100 efficient and so all you can do is lose miles. Still it isn't a bad alternative as a sedan doesn't tow that much, an electric pickup truck would be different.
That's the thing with EVs; they're so efficient that they can carry the energy equivalent of ~2 gallons of gas and stretch it out over hundreds of miles. When towing, that 2 gallons of "gas" doesn't go far, but if you have the time (and the charging stations) it's totally manageable and cost effective. Thanks for watching!
Good work. We camp (Tent that attaches to the back with hatch open) with our Model S and our 2 kids and 3 dogs, we can't wait for the Cybertruck though!
I've been curious how that works; do you run the car's air conditioner in that configuration? How does it compare to just tent camping alone? Thanks for watching!
@@alexkno11 Pretty easy set-up, once all the seats are down we can inflate a air mattress, set the Tesla to Camp-Mode and let the AC just roll thru the car and out the back in to the tent where the kids and dogs sleep. Been doing it in the Texas Hill Country this summer and been working great. And of course can't complain leaving with a full charge (easy to do with the NEMA 14-50 adapter at hookup) Always a conversation starter at the campgrounds, lots of curious folks in RV asking questions!
Thanks, I have the Australian version of that camper, hopefully one day I'll get to hitch it up to a Tesla.
I’m camping now with a Model 3. Didn’t tow anything, tent camping. Still, it’s nice that my entire fuel cost this trip has been $3.70 because I can recharge to 100% each night (LFP battery) at the campground with the Mobile Connector. And really I didn’t even have to pay that $3.70, I could have made it all the way here but Chargeway said to supercharge a bit just in case so, I did. And really I shouldn’t have to charge going home (Chargeway says to stop to add 8% to arrive home with 15%… so I should be able to arrive home with 7% or so without stopping.) I’ll okay that by ear on the way home.
I’m considering getting a Model Y with a hitch and a teardrop trailer at some point. If we can hack tent camping then a teardrop would be a massive upgrade! The one I’m looking at is under 1000 lbs total gross weight. There’s be an efficiency hit but seems like it should be a bit less than your trip. Only one way to find out!
looks like the trailer can wiegh between 2000lb and 3000lb depending on how much stuff you take with it. Model Y should be good for a 3000lb trailer.
It'd be interesting to see if the % changes in energy consumption is matched by the same changes in mpg for an ICE car on tghe same route.
Great video. You were lucky to find charging spots that were open to allow you to block off several charging lanes. As more and more people drive EV’s you might not be so lucky. You’ve shown it can be done if one has the time to wait for 30 minutes to charge. For me it seems like a lot of stress wondering if one can find a place to charge. Maybe as the number of charging stations increase, the stress level will lessen. Overall, your video content was excellent and to the point.
I appreciate the feedback! I think it'll be easier when more Superchargers come online (especially ones will pull-through stations) it'll become easier. I will say the trip home was a lot less stressful than the way up.
6:41 Why did you use that charger rather than the Tesla mobile connector?
My car didn't come with the mobile connector, so this is all I have. I'm definitely going to invest in a mobile charger before the next trip though!
it was interesting to see when you were at the Charging Station with the Solar panels that there were Gas Powered Vehicles in the charging spots
I actually didn't see any ICE cars blocking a charger; they had the Level 2 chargers spaced out under the solar panels so there were parking spaces for other cars. Hopefully we see more of these charging lots in the future!
I drive this exact route often, in a model Y Performance. I plan on towing a sideXside occasionally. This video was way too specific for me haha.
Haha, glad it could be of use!
Lol I like the Ted Lasso hoodie.
I would not recommend using cruise control when towing (for most vehicles) just because it uses to much energy or fuel trying to maintain speed up hills.
Realize that your ball mount exceeds Tesla's max rise dimension of .75 inches. My MY manual says “The Model Y hitch receiver supports a ball mount with a length of up to 8.5” (22 cm) and a rise of up to 0.75” (2 cm). Do not use any type of drop ball mount that does not meet these requirements”. It’s a concern I've had about the usefulness of the MY for towing. For all of the trailers I’ve found, using the correct mount results in an unlevel trailer. Nice video of a nice place. 👍
Thank you for the tip! I wonder what's better; meeting the ball mount requirements or having a level trailer. 🤔 I'll definitely be considering these things if/when I decide to purchase something.
Still should have used supercharger. But does take lots of “juice” to tow.
This was very informative! Quick question... What was the gross wait on your rental trailer?
The dry weight of this trailer is 2,408 lbs. There were probably a couple hundred pounds of miscellaneous items in the trailer too (like a grill). Thanks for watching!
nice video
If you put a tarp to make a wind wedge if front of the trailer, how much more efficient would it be?
Great question... I'd try that if it were my trailer, but it was a rental. Definitely interested in seeing how others have "eco-modded" their trailers to improve aerodynamics.
Alex loving your videos! I actually live in Byron MN and work in Rochester. Really wanting a Tesla but dont know when Ill be able to afford one!
They're great vehicles! Have you ever been to a www.rochesterelectricvehicles.com/ event? I might try to make it to the one on August 26th, would be cool to see you there!
Now tow a snowmobile trailer at -20C. It’s next level!
I can only imagine 😂
Great info 👍
You lost 45% of the battery in just 62 miles; driving on near flat terrain?! And towing you’ll end up blocking charge stations?! Then it took an hr to charge 56%. You’re lucky you could charge at all at the RV park. Thanks for the detailed experimental trip; so many TH-camrs fail to State all the pertinent info. It’s clear the Tesla is not capable of a serious vacation trip across the USA. The mountains of Colorado would destroy your trip w/ that minimal camper. Even the long grade climb up US 80 heading west from western Nebraska to Wyoming would drain your battery to nothing; you’d spend most of the day charging. Thanks again. Most illuminating
When it goes into trailer mode, does it take into account the mileage and route to the chargers needed?? TYIA
In California, towing trailer speed limit is 55 MPH.
I suggest that everyone towing anything not to exceed 60MPH to get best MPG or EPM (electrons per mile).
But California is the Exception. Most of the other Western states your expected to at least drive the Truck speed 65 to 70.
I guess you know the Tesla portable connector with NEMA 14-50 adapter could definitely reduce the Rube-Goldberging around @6:40, might be safer and possibly faster, too, but I can understand how the $230 bucks for the Tesla solution keeps the Bolt connector in your livery...
oops, I see you talk about the Tesla portable connector, later. I am so glad you shared this video.
Good video. Nice seeing all the consumption data. Just curious if you were using a brake controller or not and, if so, what kind?
I didn't use one. The trailer had electric brakes, but I didn't have a brake controller and technically I was legal without one since the trailer weighed less than 3,000 lbs. If I end up getting a larger trailer I'll definitely look into it and post a video about it! The Tesla towed just fine without trailer brakes though; there were only a couple times that the mechanical brakes needed to kick in, the rest of the stopping was handled by regenerative braking.
You should try to get the new Lightning trailer and test that efficiency towing.
That'd certainly be a cool trailer to review, though I can't imagine they're cheap! 😬
A nice video but I couldn’t deal with all the range anxiety so I’ll keep my 30mpg car
Good video. Wish you'd shown us the interior of the cool trailer you were pulling, tho. When you were going up that 650 ft incline, did you feel the Y being stressed at all? Or was it just the high level of energy consumption that made it apparent the car was working 'extra hard'?
The hill seemed quite manageable to the car. I went slower to "take it easy" on it, but it'd be really interesting to watch battery temps during the climb to see how hard it was really working. Yes, I should have showed off the camper a bit more; I'll keep that in mind the next time I rent one!
I'm RVing around the country in a diesel truck. I can't wait to trade the whole rig in for a cybertruck with a camper back.
Watching this video has me looking at A-frame pop-up trailers to tow with our Model YLR. I got the factory tow hitch but I'm wondering if I need to do the added mod for using trailer brakes. In the video you mentioned trailer brakes when you were plugging in the trailer but nothing about the brake mod for using the trailer brakes that the Model Y owners manual explains. You said with the regen, that the Model Y handles stopping just fine so what setup did you use and is it really necessary to do the brake mod?
I did say it was a decent alternative for someone doing this on occassion on their own time. If you were a commerical truck; this problem of charging becomes problematic; the extra hours can't be easily absorbed. With current lithium technology it isn't very viable. There are billions being spent to find better chemistry so maybe that hurdle will be overcome, hard to bank on maybes though.
Nice job men I have the same!tesla Model Y
You really have to watch those elevation changes even without a trailer.
No, the car calculates that in the range estimate
Elevation has little effect on range, as you get it back coming down! wind drag much more important with EVS
I would recommend using the model y in camping mode
I got a custom mattress and turned the model y into the camper and got a separate 10x10 inflatable tent to use with a eco flow solar generator and a portable refrigerator/ freezer brought an electric skillet and a keurig.
I camped for a week in lakeland Fl with a 3000 mile round trip from Buffalo NY - total cost was $240 vs if I towed my camper with my previous F150 it would have been $2200 in gas alone with an extra stop each way.
This gives you the normal range and the ability to use a campground or a hotel to stop at, not to mention the ability to supercharge normally
Thanks for an excellent, informative video. Can you please help me witht he tool that you used to create the map animation with your car and photo :) Thanks!
Thank you! 😄 I got the map from Google Maps (just a screenshot) and used GIMP to superimpose a our faces onto a car clipart icon from Google Images. I used Davinci Resolve as the video editor and dropped the images layer by layer onto the timeline. Then you can create the illusion of animation by moving the map Position around. There are lots of good videos on how to move images and videos around in Davinci. Hope that helps!
@@alexkno11 awesome ! thanks man !
Hi fellow Minnesotaing this is John from Osseo Minnesota I had a model y performance for 3 years now no tow hitch your toll video on the model y interesting on the Range you mentioned the plug is for lights and brakes does the model y have a brake controller built into it?
Hi John! The Model Y I have came with the factory installed tow hitch which includes the North American trailer connector on the hitch. There's a spot under the steering wheel to plug in a brake controller, but the car doesn't come with one natively. www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-F5C80FF5-8DE3-4750-8BAF-0DCC0CFA0C5C.html#TRAILERBRAKES
When you get your mobile connector, when using the 15 40 plug cut your amps back to 24. Most campground wiring cannot hold 40 amps. How do I know this?
Thanks for doing this video. Can you try an airstream?
I'm not sure when the next camper trip will be, but I'll definitely keep an Airstream on the list (provided I can find one under 3,500 lbs)!
I did a M Y road trip without towing, with a large roof pod, and was regularly in the 500+ wh/mile consumption. There were four kids and two adults in the car, but our full load didn’t weigh near as much as a pop up trailer, I don’t think. We aere also doing 80+ mph for a lot of the trip though. Aero vs. mass is interesting.
Interesting! It'll be neat to see how other trailers impact efficiency. I'm a firm believer in aerodynamics; very curious to try out a teardrop trailer.
I did a long road trip on my Y but instead of using a roof box i used a hitch carrier . I stored a bunch of big items and only lost 3% range.
Possibly putting stuff on the roof has greater impact on aero than pulling a low profile trailer. Larger frontal area means punching a bigger hole through the air. But the trailer in this video was also really long, which should be a negative also.
How did you like staying in the Aliner?
Loved it! It's almost like having a hard-walled tent. Would have appreciated having it for a longer weekend but the A-frame camper style is definitely one I'll be keeping on my short list. Only thing I wish it had was a toilet/shower combo, but I think they make ones with those included.
I think you should unplug the trailer and not blocking 4 charges regardless if there is anyone or not.