First Towing Test in my R1T

[Jamuso]

Another towing story - so "exciting"!

you're welcome to block threads that don't "excite" you.

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[Thedude]

Another towing story - so "exciting"!

Who would’ve guessed that there’d be threads about towing in the towing sub-forum.

 

[Taco]

Meh I appreciate the feedback people are providing about towing. We're looking at possibly getting a travel trailer and will be renting a few this summer so this helps me plan and understand what's ahead.

Since I'll be taking it over the divide (I70 / Eisenhower tunnel @11k ft and Vail Pass @10k ft) Information like this will hopefully keep me moving forward.

 

[BigE]

What I really should have done is detached the trailer, weighed the truck again to get just front and back and then re-attached trailer and the sway bars and weighed yet a third time. Then I would get a better idea of what the actual tongue weight is. I believe it's around 300lbs for this trailer. Another thing I forgot to note is that the weight was taken without me in the truck or on the scale. I had to get out of the truck to press the intercom to get the weight and I was off the scale when he took it.

I thought I read somewhere that the trailer brakes do apply when regen activates but I couldn't tell. On the mainly flat ground I drove over the regen was plenty to stop and hold vehicle and trailer in place.

I bought a Weigh Safe hitch to help me assess my tongue weight. My wife and I did a total rebuild of a 1969 Shasta.

Here's the day we brought it home...Covid project my wife said...

 

[azbill]

I took my boat out for a 70mph range test today, just got my used R1T on Tuesday.

Round trip to the lake we normally go to is 70miles, but there is another lake 75 miles away (150 round trip)we also like to go to occasionally. This is a Yamaha AR230 and weighs 5000lbs on the trailer. Anyway I used 92% of the battery to go 107 miles, had a 7-9mph wind but did loops to cancel that out. Going to the further lake is not going to work well with this truck.

The truck did go into tow mode when I plugged the trailer in, then it set the range estimate to 158 miles. Seems they are guessing 50% initially. But it started ramping up and got to 210 miles at one point, which was obviously wrong since the truck was getting barely over 0.9mile/kwh. Even at the end of the trip it had 3x the estimate that the truck actually had left. If you are going to tow, use the battery % to do your own estimate, it was clear to me early on that 1 mile per % was a conservative estimate of the range with my trailer attached. The efficiency was .94mile/kwh at the end of the test and I had the truck and trailer tires set to spec.

 

[azbill]

With a 3700lb trailer you should have a tongue weight around 450lbs. Only 300lbs would be borderline unsafe.

The rule of thumb is normally 10-15% of the trailers weight at the tongue, 300lbs and that trailer would likely be swaying all over the place. I know because I had some car trailers where I did not properly balance the load, pulled over quickly and moved the car forward.

 

[Goose]

I took my boat out for a 70mph range test today, just got my used R1T on Tuesday.

Round trip to the lake we normally go to is 70miles, but there is another lake 75 miles away (150 round trip)we also like to go to occasionally. This is a Yamaha AR230 and weighs 5000lbs on the trailer. Anyway I used 92% of the battery to go 107 miles, had a 7-9mph wind but did loops to cancel that out. Going to the further lake is not going to work well with this truck.

The truck did go into tow mode when I plugged the trailer in, then it set the range estimate to 158 miles. Seems they are guessing 50% initially. But it started ramping up and got to 210 miles at one point, which was obviously wrong since the truck was getting barely over 0.9mile/kwh. Even at the end of the trip it had 3x the estimate that the truck actually had left. If you are going to tow, use the battery % to do your own estimate, it was clear to me early on that 1 mile per % was a conservative estimate of the range with my trailer attached. The efficiency was .94mile/kwh at the end of the test and I had the truck and trailer tires set to spec.

I bet if you back down to 65mph you will have much better results

 

[moosetags]

I don’t think any R1Ts have actually been produced with a 1760lb payload. That was advertised when there was still a base model Explore package available, without that lower wor package most of the trucks seem to be in the 1300-1600lb range.

My R1T's payload sticker shows a 1712# payload.

Brian

 

[AZ2OR]

Did a short 52 mile loop to weigh truck and camper and get a feel for how it drives. Was extremely windy and raining. Compared to the Nissan Pathfinder I used to use to pull the camper, this drives so much better. No impact on acceleration and no straining going uphill. I did a few miles on the highway going 65 and again no effort getting up to speed. I did the first half of the loop without my sway bars installed and then installed them for ride home. They weren't installed when I took the weight and thus the imbalance front to back on the truck. I did notice quite a difference without the sway bars especially since it was so windy today so will continue to always use them. I had hoped to not use them anymore since weight distribution is not needed if trailer is under 5K and truck has built in sway control. Not using them would make for easier unhitching when charging if necessary but the drive difference with and without was significant enough to continue to use them.

Some things that occurred and towing remarks:
1) truck is supposed to go into towing mode automatically once it senses a plugged in trailer. This appeared to happen briefly as the camper lights came on then went off. I'm having a bit of trouble getting the power cord from camper to insert all the way into the R1T. When I got into the truck cab, the options on the towing mode screen were all grayed out and my monitor for the rear camera on the camper wasn't detecting the camera. As soon as I pressed the brake pedal power was supplied to camper and camera turned on. Not sure if this is normal.
2) While driving, a warning would pop up that trailer brake is now available and another warning after that the rear sensors were disabled. This popped up occasionally for a total of 10 or 12 times over the trip. However, none of the towing associated screens ever turned off or disabled before or while these warnings popped up and there never was a loss in the rear view camera. These pop up warnings were quite annoying. Not sure if I just need to clean the trailer cord contacts. Would be nice to know what sensor or power line is used to detect the trailer presence so I know where to dig deeper.
3) Can't set the trailer brake properly because you can't disable regenerative breaking. Normally you should drive around 20mph and coast and then apply the trailer brakes to stop both vehicles but can't do this since you can't coast due to regenerative breaking. I just set it to 5 and never noticed any pushing of the camper on the truck while breaking so it wasn't too low. However I don't want it to be too high because then I will be losing regen as too much breaking is coming from the trailer. Really need a mode to be able to set the trailer braked properly.
4) Before I hooked up the trailer the truck was at 85% battery with range of 248 miles. As soon as it went into tow mode it dropped the estimate to 120 miles which is expected. After about 5 miles of driving and the initial efficiency being around .9 miles/kwh the range estimate started slowly climbing. After a few miles it went all the way back up to 220 miles. It never went back down to matching the efficiency of the current data. Hoping this is just a one time glitch as this can really throw of when you need to charge.
5) Overall efficiency was 1.09 mi/kWh. Only about 10% of driving was highway but it was extremely windy and raining. I'll probably stick with my estimates of 1.0 mi/kWh but will see after we take camper for first real trip in a few weeks at over 200 mile distance. Camper is very lightweight and is why we could tow it with a Nissan Pathfinder (5K towing capacity) but it is very boxy and not aerodynamic at all. Efficiency really is impacted more by aerodynamics than weight. I'll take the 1.0 mi/kWh vs the 10 miles per gallon we were getting towing this with the pathfinder.

How did your 200 mile trip go? I have a 2013 Jayco Jay Feather M-23B (very similar to your camper) that I used to pull with my Tacoma but have swapped over to an R1S and have a trip planned in a couple weeks. The Taco averaged 9-11 mpg depending on terrain, I'm hoping to get ~1mi/kWh at 60-65mph.

 

[Rknb2000]

How did your 200 mile trip go? I have a 2013 Jayco Jay Feather M-23B (very similar to your camper) that I used to pull with my Tacoma but have swapped over to an R1S and have a trip planned in a couple weeks. The Taco averaged 9-11 mpg depending on terrain, I'm hoping to get ~1mi/kWh at 60-65mph.

I also just completed my first 1/2 way trip w/my R1T. (Live Southern Ga, left because of Idalia). 286 miles, average .96, 1st charge stated 287 in towing, 2nd charge 267, 3rd charge 157 miles. Tows great no problems, stated around 65 mph. Pulling 5000lb, with 80lb generator in truck bed. Got rid of my sway bar, didn’t really need it. RA chargers, Pooler GA w/towing charger, Macon GA, Prosperity SC (only level 2), and last, Greenville SC. Never unhooked RV, no one else around. Slept at level 2 charger in my RV.

 

[Epicloop]

Going to the further lake is not going to work well with this truck

Have seen report of 30% improvement from 70-65mph while towing.

 

[azbill]

Have seen report of 30% improvement from 70-65mph while towing.

Not possible. The drag reduction would be 15% with that speed change, but the rolling friction is constant, so maybe a 10% improvement, at best. Would have to drop to 55mph to get that improvement.

 

[Epicloop]

Not possible. The drag reduction would be 15% with that speed change, but the rolling friction is constant, so maybe a 10% improvement, at best. Would have to drop to 55mph to get that improvement.

Just towed a car trailer (total of approx 4800 lbs) 250 miles, mostly flat, low 70 degree day, minimal wind. At 50 mph efficiency was 2.0, 65 mph it dropped to 1.62, 70 mph dropped to 1.24. Was able to use RAN on the way. Tows beautifully!

Maybe it was 55 or 60 not 65 ??‍ either way 70mph far from optimal for EV towing.

 

[cmsmith]

I took my boat out for a 70mph range test today, just got my used R1T on Tuesday.

Round trip to the lake we normally go to is 70miles, but there is another lake 75 miles away (150 round trip)we also like to go to occasionally. This is a Yamaha AR230 and weighs 5000lbs on the trailer. Anyway I used 92% of the battery to go 107 miles, had a 7-9mph wind but did loops to cancel that out. Going to the further lake is not going to work well with this truck.

The truck did go into tow mode when I plugged the trailer in, then it set the range estimate to 158 miles. Seems they are guessing 50% initially. But it started ramping up and got to 210 miles at one point, which was obviously wrong since the truck was getting barely over 0.9mile/kwh. Even at the end of the trip it had 3x the estimate that the truck actually had left. If you are going to tow, use the battery % to do your own estimate, it was clear to me early on that 1 mile per % was a conservative estimate of the range with my trailer attached. The efficiency was .94mile/kwh at the end of the test and I had the truck and trailer tires set to spec.

What size pack do you have (standard, large, max)?

 

[cmsmith]

Did a short 52 mile loop to weigh truck and camper and get a feel for how it drives. Was extremely windy and raining. Compared to the Nissan Pathfinder I used to use to pull the camper, this drives so much better. No impact on acceleration and no straining going uphill. I did a few miles on the highway going 65 and again no effort getting up to speed. I did the first half of the loop without my sway bars installed and then installed them for ride home. They weren't installed when I took the weight and thus the imbalance front to back on the truck. I did notice quite a difference without the sway bars especially since it was so windy today so will continue to always use them. I had hoped to not use them anymore since weight distribution is not needed if trailer is under 5K and truck has built in sway control. Not using them would make for easier unhitching when charging if necessary but the drive difference with and without was significant enough to continue to use them.

Some things that occurred and towing remarks:
1) truck is supposed to go into towing mode automatically once it senses a plugged in trailer. This appeared to happen briefly as the camper lights came on then went off. I'm having a bit of trouble getting the power cord from camper to insert all the way into the R1T. When I got into the truck cab, the options on the towing mode screen were all grayed out and my monitor for the rear camera on the camper wasn't detecting the camera. As soon as I pressed the brake pedal power was supplied to camper and camera turned on. Not sure if this is normal.
2) While driving, a warning would pop up that trailer brake is now available and another warning after that the rear sensors were disabled. This popped up occasionally for a total of 10 or 12 times over the trip. However, none of the towing associated screens ever turned off or disabled before or while these warnings popped up and there never was a loss in the rear view camera. These pop up warnings were quite annoying. Not sure if I just need to clean the trailer cord contacts. Would be nice to know what sensor or power line is used to detect the trailer presence so I know where to dig deeper.
3) Can't set the trailer brake properly because you can't disable regenerative breaking. Normally you should drive around 20mph and coast and then apply the trailer brakes to stop both vehicles but can't do this since you can't coast due to regenerative breaking. I just set it to 5 and never noticed any pushing of the camper on the truck while breaking so it wasn't too low. However I don't want it to be too high because then I will be losing regen as too much breaking is coming from the trailer. Really need a mode to be able to set the trailer braked properly.
4) Before I hooked up the trailer the truck was at 85% battery with range of 248 miles. As soon as it went into tow mode it dropped the estimate to 120 miles which is expected. After about 5 miles of driving and the initial efficiency being around .9 miles/kwh the range estimate started slowly climbing. After a few miles it went all the way back up to 220 miles. It never went back down to matching the efficiency of the current data. Hoping this is just a one time glitch as this can really throw of when you need to charge.
5) Overall efficiency was 1.09 mi/kWh. Only about 10% of driving was highway but it was extremely windy and raining. I'll probably stick with my estimates of 1.0 mi/kWh but will see after we take camper for first real trip in a few weeks at over 200 mile distance. Camper is very lightweight and is why we could tow it with a Nissan Pathfinder (5K towing capacity) but it is very boxy and not aerodynamic at all. Efficiency really is impacted more by aerodynamics than weight. I'll take the 1.0 mi/kWh vs the 10 miles per gallon we were getting towing this with the pathfinder.

What size battery pack do you have (standard, large, or max)?

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