This is happening now! - First towing trip

[greyboundary]

The RAN pull through stations are great, but I’ve definitely done this elsewhere. Much easier towing during not peak hours with reduced road / charging traffic.

Sponsored

 

[mudito]

The RAN pull through stations are great, but I’ve definitely done this elsewhere. Much easier towing during not peak hours with reduced road / charging traffic.

One has to be creatice

The RAN pull through stations are great, but I’ve definitely done this elsewhere. Much easier towing during not peak hours with reduced road / charging traffic.

One has to be creative

 

[Dynabro86]

Did you make it!?? I'm sitting on the edge of my seat. How deep in the battery charge state did you get?

 

[mudito]

Did you make it!?? I'm sitting on the edge of my seat. How deep in the battery charge state did you get?

I'm just charging with an empty Trailer in Minnesota to start the return trip.

I had three severe thunderstorms (I had to shelter form hail underneath a Home Depot Roor). Slept in the back seat in a parking lot and had very "creative" charging parking jobs.

Wind picked up for the 2nd half of the trip. Final numbers were this :

 

[schmove]

Hello fellow RS owner. Still have mine new from 2016.

 

[mudito]

Hello fellow RS owner. Still have mine new from 2016.

Mine is a '16 as well

This is the reason why I'm towing it:

 

[schmove]

MN = TunePlus?

 

[mudito]

MN = TunePlus?

Yes.
Engine #1 blew with Tuner #1 (considered the best and safest by many).

Engine #2 lasted 12k miles of abuse (worth mentioning) with Tuner #2 who recommendes Engine builder #2.

Got myself and used OEM engine and tuned with TunePlus in spite of whatever internet said and that was the smoothest tune I ever ran. Hence I purchased a Full Longblock with upgraded injection from him. He will do the entire thing from building to installing to tune it. Told him I want an engine That outlast me and I was clear with the abuse the engine will suffer.

In a few years I'll let you know how it goes

 

[mudito]

For those following, I arrived back home at midnight Wednesday night (start of Thursday), These are the stats of the return trip with an empty trailer (mind you the Avg Speed was 8 to 10mph faster, with the overall driving time going from 19 hours to 16 on the return trip, so the efficiency at the same speed would have been much better):

The "Current weight" oscillated from 3000 to 4000lbs during the trip so I'm guessing the actual weight was 3500lbs. The trailer specs said 2700lbs but it had a toolbox full of stuff, plus the winch so 3500lbs should be fairly accurate.

There was A LOT of bouncing with an empty trailer on some road stretches, and after a quick AI Assistant question I was served with several good options, lowered the tire pressure from 60psi to 40 (and then 32 on the next stop)psi and that helped A LOT. Still some irregular portions of the road posed with some bouncing at 70-75mph, so finally lowering the hitch (I had an adjustable one) a few inches AND putting the suspension in LOW-Soft got rid of the remainder of the bouncing: Smooth sailing all the way down.


Charging with a trailer can be tricky as y'all know. Be creative (as shown in pictures here!)! and 100% of the Tesla drivers I was "affecting" in some way, were very nice and understanding. Can't say the for the employees of the Hy-Vee Grocery Store in Kansas City (MO side), If you ever DCFC at their location, I wouldn't give them the pleasure of my business

Spoiler: (Hy-Vee Story), expand if you want to read the 'drama', otherwise, skip on :)

So arrived at the location and I was familiar with it since I did a charge the day before on the way north. There were two Tesla M3 charging so I located my truck in a way I wasn't blocking anybody from getting in or out of the SC. Granted, my empty trailer was blocking the way for getting around the parking lot BUT it was half empty so I wasn't ACTUALLY blocking anyone's way.

Arrived at 18% SoC (About 30mi of range) and I immediately started to work on adjusting the height of the trailer hitch (as per my comments above), while doing that I started a friendly conversation with the Model 3 owner and dog charging right next to me. Not even 3 minutes into this I was approached by an employee and the conversation was as follows:

(E)mployee- Hi, sorry, you have to leave.
Me- Oh, I'm sorry, I know I'm blocking this, but I parked like this on purpose since I'm not actually in anyone's way. I'll be done in 20 minutes if you allow me to and I'll be on my way.
E- No, you have to leave, people is complaining (Attitude wasn't great)
Me- Oh, really? That fast, huh? (Smelled BS so I switched from apologetic to a-hole mode).
E- Yes.
Me- Ok, I have my trailer unhitched, if you allow me 5 mins, so safely check everything is safe, I'll be on my way.
E- OK

So I adjusted the hitch and hooked while the employee walked back to the store. Not even 5 mins past by that he walked by all over again, so granted my attitude shifted completely and (I told the Tesla Model3 driver) I said I will play dumb and just gain time until I reach my SoC goal which was 60%.

E- MAN, you have to LEAVE NOW.
Me - Show me the line of cars that I'm blocking that need to wait until I leave and I would leave right away (while pointing to all empty space around us)
E- Well, my supervisor told me to tell you to leave.
Me- Look, I understand you're the owner of the premises and you're 100% allowed to kick me out of your property. If that's what you want, tell your supervisor to come here and kick me out.
E- Calls the supervisor on the phone.
E- My supervisor says it's calling the police.
Me- AWESOME!, once the officer is here and tells me I need to leave, I'll leave. You do understand I'm charging and not just blocking people's way because it's fun right?
E- plays dumb.
Me- Mind you, I'm literally 9 minutes away to hit my charging goal, and If I leave before the police arrives, make sure you take not of my license plate (Which I was pointing to it because it was kind of cover by the hitch) so they know who to search for.
(yeah, I know, I was cocky and a-hole knowing that I'll be gone before anybody arrives).

At this moment, the Tesla Driver (both charging on the site) got VIVID on the employee yelling them "THE DUDE IS CHARGING, GET THE F OFF..."

I got myself in the middle facing the drivers and told them "They have the right to kick me out, but don't worry, I have already enough charge to make it to my next stop, I'm just gaining time to get a buffer and I'll be gone, I'm just wasting time arguing so I get more juice in my battery".

They smiled, we chat a bit about some nonsense stuff, unplug at 61%, and off I went.

Picture or it never happened, right? Well I actually only recorded a very short video

Other than that, I only un-hitched once (actually in my first charge location where I wrote this initial post from) because the Tesla SC location was crowded and the space to circulate was very tight. After that one I checked satellite images of the chargers ahead of time and adjusted my charge destination only twice based on what I was able to see from the image.

One other time I was kind of blocking the one way of traffic so I spoke to some of the other EV users around and let them know that I'll be in my truck ready to move away when they needed it and everyone was super-nice about it.

In terms of charging time, I sticked to my (now habit after many road trips in my R1T) of using the bottom part of the battery pack to reduce charging times so I averaged exactly 29 minutes of charge time across 9 charging stops. Basically enough to park, Stretch, go to the restrooms, come back, check Twitter for 5 minutes and move on


Conclusion:
Will I tow again long distance with my R1T?
- NOT Willingly! I think 130kWh battery for towing isn't big enough. I would have loved to have an additional 70kWh at my disposal. That coupled with a 800V HV Battery Architecture with ~350kW charging capability (a.k.a. Silverado EV) would have made my trip way more enjoyable!

Does it tow like a champ?
- YES it does. The cliché of "You don't even feel you're towing" is 100% real.

Is it comfy for sleeping in the back Seat?
- It's definitely doable. I'm 5'8" and I was able to spend two nights sleeping on the back seat, I had a blanket and a pillow and I would have loved to have a 2nd blanket to cover the seat for a better experience as some of the seams left an indent in different part of my body Camp Mode with the temperature set at 71F was PERFECT for me, I covered my windshield but I wish I had covers for my roof, I would have gain an extra hour of sleep and that would have been great

cheers!

 

[Robin]

Not bad, what speed are you running?
(assuming Quad Large Gen 1?)

One has to be creatice

One has to be creative

Yep, been there done that with my RV at Teslas. I try to find the Tesla’s with the most charging kiosks, so I can swoop and scoop without pissing people off..

 

[ebarke]

The RAN pull through stations are great, but I’ve definitely done this elsewhere. Much easier towing during not peak hours with reduced road / charging traffic.

Love the evora!

 

[polonus]

On Memorial Day Weekend I went for a 3-nights trip from charlotte, NC to the Appalachian Mtns, with light, about 1500 lbs trailer. I was using RAN chargers near Blue Ridge Parkway, in Blowing Rock, NC, Meadows of Dan, VA and Roanoke, VA. My energy consumption on average was 1.4 m/kWh.

BTW when the price for the electrons went up? I paid 35 cents year ago, on my trip to Florida, but now it was a 55 cents per kWh. It would be much cheaper to drive with my campervan...

1.4 m/kWh with 55 cents price costs on 500 miles trip about $200 for "fuel". My Ford Transit with that trailer would make about 12 mpg and fuel costs $2.8, so the cost of gasoline would be about $115 - almost half the price. And for gas I have promotions from Kroger/Harris Teeter, lowering the price of gas to $1.8...

 

[mudito]

On Memorial Day Weekend I went for a 3-nights trip from charlotte, NC to the Appalachian Mtns, with light, about 1500 lbs trailer. I was using RAN chargers near Blue Ridge Parkway, in Blowing Rock, NC, Meadows of Dan, VA and Roanoke, VA. My energy consumption on average was 1.4 m/kWh.

BTW when the price for the electrons went up? I paid 35 cents year ago, on my trip to Florida, but now it was a 55 cents per kWh. It would be much cheaper to drive with my campervan...

Yeah it went up not long ago. When Road-tripping I subscribe to Tesla Supercharger for that month to get member pricing which is around 0.33 avg but as low as 0.20 at nights on some chargers

Sponsored