Towing with Tesla Model X

[BlkGS]

I would like to see at least a 50kwh in a truck. The Jeep has a 17kwh with 15 usable. 45 usable should give me over 75 miles normal and 30 mile towing.

The problem is where does the battery go? I don't think there is much room on a standard chassis. Maybe tuck it under the bed (like where the spare goes), or hell give me 6" less of bed space and put it in the bed. There is no way a battery is fitting under the hood, plus it would get too hot from the motor.

Au contraire, if you only had a small generator upnfront, you could bolt in a bulkhead that'd put the generator on one side, and a battery pack on the other. And since it'd be relatively small, you wouldn't need to do anything too crazy to make space.

But yeah, you could make a flat pack that fit in the bottom of the bed that was an inch or 2 thick and nobody would ever notice.

 

[Eldonfredo]

Model Y pulls the 19’s like it’s the future. all wheel drive? Check. Boatload of torque? Check. I use a pretty steep, slippery ramp it pulls out zero issues. Range sucks, but that’s a personal choice I am not going far. Driving down the road, you can’t tell the boat is back there. I Always turn on rear view cameras while driving to keep an eye back there. you better be paying attention, and bring some hp if you want to beat me off the line…while I’m towing!

HUGE CAVEAT - Not sure if this is my low level anxiety or just growing up, you know, taking care of stuff but bring wheel chocks! . I don’t care what I look like. Park “gear” is not a gear in the Tesla. So if brakes fail? bloop, bloop , bloop. Chocks create redundancy. Bring wheel chocks.

My go to line at the ramp that I stole from here or the Tesla forum is telling people to get ready to grab the electrocuted fish when I back in.

AMA.

 

[2kwik4u]

@Eldonfredo cool setup.

What kind of energy usage are you seeing while towing?

 

[Eldonfredo]

@Eldonfredo cool setup.

What kind of energy usage are you seeing while towing?

Double. So I drive with a heavy foot and I am usually around 300 wh/M in day-to-day. With the boat I am around to 550 wh/m. All city driving between 30 and 45 (ish) MPH. I usually get about 250 miles out of full charge (no boat), again heavy foot, so I would take the boat about 120 miles max, but have no plans to do so.

Stating the obvious perhaps, but anyone new to EV’s needs to consider their own driving style and conditions. If you take every red light as a personal challenge to beat every Camry that pulls up next you, guilty, you won’t get the advertised range. Just like you won’t get the full MPG in an ICE.

 

[BlkGS]

Towing a 19 footer isn't exactly tough, lol. That's a pretty small boat, people tow them just fine with like, Ford escapes. It's a 3000 pound load with a fully loaded boat. Anything with like, 275 tq or more would pull that like it's not there lol.

That said, I'm surprise dit doubled energy use on that small a boat. I figured the bigger boats would be the ones draining the energy like that.

 

[2kwik4u]

Towing a 19 footer isn't exactly tough, lol. That's a pretty small boat, people tow them just fine with like, Ford escapes. It's a 3000 pound load with a fully loaded boat. Anything with like, 275 tq or more would pull that like it's not there lol.

That said, I'm surprise dit doubled energy use on that small a boat. I figured the bigger boats would be the ones draining the energy like that.

It's the aero causing the usage. My 190 scaled at 3,160lbs ready to go, and I see about a half in my fuel mileage while towing with it.

Think of it this way; Weight is a penalty only when accelerating or going uphill. The extra energy to keep the thing moving (based on weight alone) is only going to be rolling resistance. Once it's accelerated and on a level surface, the energy to keep it going is relatively low. When going uphill, the energy needed to keep it going is only a function of the angle of inclination and the speed. If you're moving a small vertical height over a long time, it's no big deal, large height over a short time, it's much more work......Aero though, it's a constant force to be overcome. Tesla's in particular are made to be extremely "slippery" during normal driving, so tagging a tall, big thing behind it, there's a lot of constant force that has to be overcome. So the energy usage is much higher. Also, that force goes up by the square of velocity, so twice as fast is four times the force to overcome.

The 190 behind my pickup was less of a hit (percentage wise) than it was to my SS or Q7. The bow of the boat was right about the top edge of the bed, then with a cover, it was "fairly" slippery in terms of wind resistance. It's about 3/4 the way up the back glass on the SUV's, so there isn't that good transition point, and I lose more range because of it.

Anywho, you're not wrong. The 190's are super easy to tow and live with in general.

 

[Eldonfredo]

Towing a 19 footer isn't exactly tough, lol. That's a pretty small boat, people tow them just fine with like, Ford escapes. It's a 3000 pound load with a fully loaded boat. Anything with like, 275 tq or more would pull that like it's not there lol.

That said, I'm surprise dit doubled energy use on that small a boat. I figured the bigger boats would be the ones draining the energy like that.

 

[Eldonfredo]

not impressed huh? Ok that’s it I’m getting a 275 just to test the towing! Totally agree. The Y is a crossover basically. I’d Take it over an escape though. I did see a guy with same Y pull an older 21’ out at the same ramp. Not sure if they were lighter last hull style, but he had no issues. I wouldn’t do it because it probably exceeds stated tow limit for the Y. For a real towing challenge you should see me tow my mother in law with the boat!

 

[adrianp89]

Interesting... how will this work with raising temps and full electric by 2030?

California asks residents to avoid charging electric cars amid intense heat wave

Days after announcing a ban on the sale of many gas cars in the state starting in 2035, California is asking residents to avoid charging their electric vehicles during peak usage hours to save energy as a late-summer heatwave grips the Golden State.

www.yahoo.com

 

[2kwik4u]

Interesting... how will this work with raising temps and full electric by 2030?

California asks residents to avoid charging electric cars amid intense heat wave

Days after announcing a ban on the sale of many gas cars in the state starting in 2035, California is asking residents to avoid charging their electric vehicles during peak usage hours to save energy as a late-summer heatwave grips the Golden State.

www.yahoo.com

Exactly the same.

 

[BlkGS]

Interesting... how will this work with raising temps and full electric by 2030?

California asks residents to avoid charging electric cars amid intense heat wave

Days after announcing a ban on the sale of many gas cars in the state starting in 2035, California is asking residents to avoid charging their electric vehicles during peak usage hours to save energy as a late-summer heatwave grips the Golden State.

www.yahoo.com

It's California... it won't. It'll just keep the regular folks down, but the rich will get special exclusions like they do for everything else there.

 

[BlkGS]

Saw this story this morning. Not sure if I'm more surprised by the boat being that heavy, or the range being that poor.

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2022/09/06/ford-f-150-lightning-owner-upgraded-battery-towing-wake-boat-says-full-charge-got-58-miles/

 

[adrianp89]

Saw this story this morning. Not sure if I'm more surprised by the boat being that heavy, or the range being that poor.

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2022/09/06/ford-f-150-lightning-owner-upgraded-battery-towing-wake-boat-says-full-charge-got-58-miles/

More surprised by range. Granted I don’t how fast we has going, but that is pathetic.

 

[2kwik4u]

Saw this story this morning. Not sure if I'm more surprised by the boat being that heavy, or the range being that poor.

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2022/09/06/ford-f-150-lightning-owner-upgraded-battery-towing-wake-boat-says-full-charge-got-58-miles/

I had a friend with a Centurion a while back. I asked why they moved to triple axle trailers. Apparently some owners liked to tow with the ballast full so they didn't have to bother with emptying/refilling on the lake. They could get away with dual 3,500 axles, until owners started doing dumb shit.

The 6,150 dry weight doesn't surprise me all that much for a 24ft wake boat. Honestly neither does the 58mi range from a 131kWh battery.

Still a good bit of "shock and awe" writing that is going into these articles.

 

[BlkGS]

I had a friend with a Centurion a while back. I asked why they moved to triple axle trailers. Apparently some owners liked to tow with the ballast full so they didn't have to bother with emptying/refilling on the lake. They could get away with dual 3,500 axles, until owners started doing dumb shit.

The 6,150 dry weight doesn't surprise me all that much for a 24ft wake boat. Honestly neither does the 58mi range from a 131kWh battery.

Still a good bit of "shock and awe" writing that is going into these articles.

What's surprising to me is they claim a 300 mile range, and then when towing it dropped that far. I figured a 50% drop in range was pretty standard at this point. That's a ~80% drop in range.

Automakers keep announcing more things going full on battery, and it really seems like that's a very short sighted decision if they let their ICE powered stuff fall by the wayside. Reports are that the Wagoneer 4xe isn't going to be a PHEV as would make sense, and will instead be a full BEV. Seems like a recipe for disaster to me putting all your eggs in the battery basket, when clearly there's some stuff they just can't do.

 

[2kwik4u]

What's surprising to me is they claim a 300 mile range, and then when towing it dropped that far. I figured a 50% drop in range was pretty standard at this point. That's a ~80% drop in range.

Automakers keep announcing more things going full on battery, and it really seems like that's a very short sighted decision if they let their ICE powered stuff fall by the wayside. Reports are that the Wagoneer 4xe isn't going to be a PHEV as would make sense, and will instead be a full BEV. Seems like a recipe for disaster to me putting all your eggs in the battery basket, when clearly there's some stuff they just can't do.

Keep in mind, long tows (100mi+) are more the exception than the rule. Even with the abysmal 58mi range, the dude still made it to the lake and back.

We're just going to be forced into either keeping older vehicles or buying more than vehicle than we need to keep the range we want.

 

[BlkGS]

Keep in mind, long tows (100mi+) are more the exception than the rule. Even with the abysmal 58mi range, the dude still made it to the lake and back.

We're just going to be forced into either keeping older vehicles or buying more than vehicle than we need to keep the range we want.

I'm looking at 100+ mile tows almost exclusively. My current thought is to use the boat in our spring lakes and rivers, the keys, maybe up to NC lakes. Local FL lakes are, in general, not swimming lakes.

Part of me thinks these companies are in business to make money, and so they will revert to things that make money. Honestly, I think the best bet for the industry is to spin off their electric divisions from the main companies, and as long as they don't burden them with all the debt of the EV side.

 

[Bluewater272]

Keep in mind, long tows (100mi+) are more the exception than the rule. Even with the abysmal 58mi range, the dude still made it to the lake and back.

We're just going to be forced into either keeping older vehicles or buying more than vehicle than we need to keep the range we want.

Personally, 80-100 round trip tows are normal for me, and many others who don't live in lake country or right near the water. So while I'm ready for an EV, I still need to have my gas truck (at least until they start putting EV chargers at the boat ramps, which isn't a radical idea).

 

[adrianp89]

Keep in mind, long tows (100mi+) are more the exception than the rule. Even with the abysmal 58mi range, the dude still made it to the lake and back.

We're just going to be forced into either keeping older vehicles or buying more than vehicle than we need to keep the range we want.

He hardly made it back. If true, the range is flat out pathetic. He probably bought that truck expecting ~150 mile range while towing and got a 1/3rd of that.

 

[2kwik4u]

He hardly made it back. If true, the range is flat out pathetic. He probably bought that truck expecting ~150 mile range while towing and got a 1/3rd of that.

You're not wrong. It's garbage range, and not the right solution for him. No safety net to be had.