EV Trucks Can't Tow Far? These Change Everything!

It is amazing that tech is making its way from the vehicle to the towing infrastructure. Forget EV trucks for a moment. The key here is that, because of EVs, all the inefficient systems that have been ignored at the consumers expense, are being re-addressed. This tech helps all trucks owners, not just electric buyers. Your input matters! PLEASE! I love to hear from you and you thoughts. Comment below and help boost this important conversation. Thank you for watching!

The Aerovault has already been around for decades. It's a super aerodynamic enclosed car hauler that I looked into when my diesel truck jumped from 13L/100km empty to 30L/100km when towing an eclosed car hauler. It was just hard to justify $30k when a conventional trailer was $8k and made a better shed when not in use.

The elephant in the room is cost. I imagine these trailers will be only for the very wealthy initially. You still need to charge your truck and charging stations are not so good for that when you have a trailer. I think the Ramcharger could be a more viable solution if it works well and is reliable. Still expensive but you can pull into a gas station and not have to disconnect your trailer to charge. My guess is that the big gains in terms of reducing the amount of gas burned is people who don’t tow long distances. Get people into electric trucks who have the right lifestyle and not worry too much about making them work for everyone at this point. Leave the long distance towing to that high energy density gas or diesel engine. Seems to me that by the time you are towing everything and the kitchen sink with you everywhere the environment has already kind of gone off the priority list. Thanks for the video, I enjoyed it.

First great video. I hope your channel keeps growing. I love this concept. Although the expense is substantial and of course it's new. Reliability will be a problem. I think at the least though we need to start making these things arrow dynamic and then battery assist is an absolute must in the future. This will save money in the long run. We'll even the short run with how efficient they are

These are very cool, but I’d be interested in one that didn’t have the powered drive or sci-fi features and was just a very aerodynamic camper with some solar capabilities. Just not hurting the truck’s range as much would be an acceptable improvement. Being able to L1 charge during the day while I’m out on the lake would be cool too.

The idea of adding a battery pack and helper motors to trailers are something of a mixed blessing. They would work great for "local" hauling where the rig winds up back at the truck's home base where it could be charged up at one's leisure. It could be a bit more problematic for long road trips, where you will be recharging several times a day. like with a travel trailer or picking up a hobby car 500-1000 miles away from home. If you need to stop to recharge, you will be recharging two units each time you will be recharging, which is not ideal. Special tow friendly charging station with separate chargers for the truck and trailer could help this. In my opinion, the important thing is to do what you can to reduce the weight and drag of the trailer. For a car trailer/toy hauler, a low slung trailer with an aerodynamic enclosure will reduce the energy used to overcome drag. Driving slower 55-60 mph would also help, and by reducing the amount of times you need to recharge may make up for the time lost by traveling slower. At least hypothetically.

That was great info. I would like to see if the Livestock/ Horse trailer companies are or will join in. One thing that I can' t get my head around is why they did not install dynamos on the wheel of EVs, like when I used to ride a bicycle many moos ago.... getting a little bit dark ( out a little too late with the little lady )... so push the switch and presto light from the dynamo on the front wheel. I guess that it would be too efficient.... therefore less profit for the industry.✌.

Interesting thought -- if those trailers have an electric drive assist, is that going to affect the tow rating for the vehicle? I know that big trucks generally don't have to worry about towing a 5000lb trailer or similarly sized accessory, but a lot of smaller hybrids or PHEV's are rated for much less: my Crosstrek PHEV can pull 1500lbs before I void the warranty (and we've been looking for a camp trailer without much success because of it). If the trailer's got an electric drive assist, that's gotta affect that math....

Thanks again Simon for your awesome insights. Indeed, the future holds many innovations! Hopefully this stuff will become affordable for us little guys.

Electric Auto Association has been talking about this since its inception (in 1968). then in the mid 1970s the concept of the Lithium-Air battery, which theoretically has 11.4 kWh/kg, was proposed. I'm sure something equivalent will eventually be discovered

Not sure if power assist is needed in most cases as evs have plenty of power. Being able to draw energy from the trailer would be very useful. Cool concept that an RV can be useful as home power backup or a virtual grid money maker while not in use.

All these batteries are HEAVY. Which means more ENERGY.

Yep. I've known this from the start. After all, you can't make a fuel on the fly; but electricity is not a fuel. Flexible solar panels all around the campers and see-through panels on the windows are a no-brainer. For standard flat trailers, 600 plus watt standard solar panels covering its roof and sides will also come in time. All their production being collected by thin, aerodynamic battery packs all along its underside. Just think about how many kilowatts of power can be collected by such a semi-trailer, both while driving or standing still. Just think about the range of an electric semi with such a trailer. Suddenly that advantage of diesel or gas per gallon becomes a minus.

Good vid 👍 Are there any EVs now that allow transfer of power from an external battery while on the move? Cheers

We've seen that the silverado ev can already tow a good distance of over 230 miles on a charge while towing 7000lbs. What we need is bigger batteries, while being decently efficient. The hummer ev has a massive battery but its shaped like a fist, and its tires are built for offroad. We can't expect ev's to ever be mainstream in the truck market until we can make an ev truck tow a NORMAL TRAILER. Because news flash, 99.9999999% of trailers do not have massive batteries in them. Yes when it comes to travel trailers, if you're towing with an ev, sure that's a good idea for those who can afford it. But for normal people, that is simply not practical at all plus adding heavy batteries to the trailer reduces the load you can pull, which makes work applications far less useful. so ev trucks NEED to be good enough to tow a normal trailer workout batteries efficientky for long enough distances. But you know what the track solution right now is? A GAS OR DIESEL GENERATOR. trains already use this. Ev powertrains are very good for towing, the only problem is energy. So plus with the introduction of synthetic fuels, we use gssoline and diesel generators connected to a battery and motor for power? That just makes plain sense for towing.

EV trucks need a 300-400 kw battery pack to be on par range wise with an ICE. 100 kw is equivalent to a 3-4 gallon gas tank while towing.