>2,300 mi. Towing DWELLER Trailer w/ R1S

Wrapped-up my first experience towing the OBi DWELLER D15 adventure trailer with my R1S. Some quick facts:

• 5,070 lbs Dry-wt
• 6,405 lbs GVWR
• No WDH (explained)
• 90% of cargo in R1S
• 2,331 miles traveled
• 48 MPH Avg speed
• 49 Hours traveling
• Solo (driver-only)
• 1.13 Mile/kWhr
• 60-90 miles between charge-ups **
• never towed b4 in my life​

Overall found the experience positive with several caveats. Addressing the miles between charge-ups being in the range of 60-90 miles, that’s NOT equivalent to saying R1S cwn only tow (this trailer) that far on a single charge. While I never tested this for good reason, I’d say it could go 120-140 miles if one wished (dumb enough) to go from 100% SoC to seeing less than 2% battery remaining. Main reason for not exploring this in real-world is the agonizingly slower rate of charging beyond 80% SoC. So generally speaking would roll into a station around 10-15% and leave once it charged to 70-80%. On average took about 40 mins to past an hour on every stop. Even that rule-of-thumb doesn’t equate to a full answer for “so how long to charge-up?” Most, if not all of us know the ‘joys’ of dealing with Electrify America stations. The 350kW ports will run seemingly arbitrarily 60-230’ish actual while the so-called 150kW ports may do 40-147 max. It’s a roullette wheel every time. Longest agonizing one ran like a L2 at 16-18 kW for like 3 hours to make it to next true L3.

I don’t want to come across overly complaining about how real-world EV excursions are a terrible ordeal, or just for the fool-hearty. I enjoyed (most) of the diversity of where charging stations arose. It’s rewarding to get frequent rest breaks to stretch legs. It boils down to adopting a casual mindset and setting appropriate daily travel distance goals. From my experience I’m going to set 300-400 miles max. to make each day pleasant and allow for more than just “crash-out” time. I won’t be doing anymore 600+ miles in a single day, much less back-to-back. Those were brutal and honestly unsafe.

Here’s the many lovely viewpoints along the way between San Diego, CA out to Loveland, CO and back.

Will add that trip showed what poor shape America’s highway roads have fallen into. Often miles of compressed to single-lane with orange marker barrels placed it a big-rig plus 6 inches kind of room to drive along (past a hundred barrels). Talk about lots of white-knuckler moments, especially just ahead of or behind a true big-rig truck. My hat’s off to all of those hard-working folks.

glad to address any questions

Trip A is whole round trip record, Trip B is return half

P.S. - I’d say had to unhitch /separate trailer for charging less than 25% of the time, which was a pleasant surprise

Lack of using a weight-distribution hitch attributed to the Australian ‘McHitch’ articulating design for vehicle-side receiver cone base. It has larger landing footprint than a hitch ball. I did buy a nice WHD but found out evening before that I need to grind away some clearance for it to sit properly flat where the bolt passes through the WDH root.

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That's some good efficiency for R1S! Mine did around 1mi per kwh over 1200 miles. I was pulling an Apex 245BHS Ultra lite. I think the single axle helped you a bit. Even more impressive your running the 20" AT. Ours runs 21" Road.

240vPlug said:

That's some good efficiency for R1S! Mine did around 1mi per kwh over 1200 miles. I was pulling an Apex 245BHS Ultra lite. I think the single axle helped you a bit. Even more impressive your running the 20" AT. Ours runs 21" Road.

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yeah, forgot to mention speed control. Ran generally at 60 mph no matter the posted limit (80 mph in Utah!). Furthermore would reduce down to 55 or even 50 mph during steeper grade accents. There were times on long flat stretches where i’d set cruise control to 65-70 mph. I utilized the real-time “Last 15 minutes of driving” graphic on driver’s display to react to drop-offs below 1.0. There were still plenty of times it fell below 1.0 due to terrain

LoneStar said:

yeah, forgot to mention speed control. Ran generally at 60 mph no matter the posted limit (80 mph in Utah!). Furthermore would reduce down to 55 or even 50 mph during steeper grade accents. There were times on long flat stretches where i’d set cruise control to 65-70 mph. I utilized the real-time “Last 15 minutes of driving” graphic on driver’s display to react to drop-offs below 1.0. There were still plenty of times it fell below 1.0 due to terrain

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Yeah, I did 65 mostly....I averaged 1.2 in the T on a shorter trip when I limited it to 60. What ride height did you run in Tow mode?

240vPlug said:

Yeah, I did 65 mostly....I averaged 1.2 in the T on a shorter trip when I limited it to 60. What ride height did you run in Tow mode?

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Low. (the lowest available)

I am living vicariously through your pictures and adventures.

Thanks for sharing your travel journey with us.

Do you have any pictures of the inside of the Dweller?

LoneStar said:

Low. (the lowest available)

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Yeah I tried both. Strangely my tongue was pitched up more when in low ride height so I switched to standard on the return trip. I was surprised that standard right height dropped the tongue a bit vs low.

Mine is about 28 ft long...the tandem axles help with handling but of course increase rolling resistance a bit.

Great job. How about a route map of the trip. Many of those EA stations look familiar. Surprised there were no big complaints about the chargers. LA to NM has always been trouble for me. I’d rather be at a roulette wheel in vegas than guess if EA chargers are all up and working.

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How was the EA station in green river. Last time i was there we had a hard time getting it to take payments and once we got that figured out it still would only charge at 90 KW.

No_Name5330 said:

How was the EA station in green river. Last time i was there we had a hard time getting it to take payments and once we got that figured out it still would only charge at 90 KW.

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Actually worked out well both times (both directions). Always initiate charging through the EA app which saves you 25% on rate per kW. The 350’s pumped electrons about as quickly as any other EA station. Its a shame the Coffee shop was never open - think it went out of business, or has very sketchy business hours

Had a rare spotting of another Rivian there. Honestly, saw a total of ONE other Rivian while transiting over 2,000 highway miles. That surprised me.