In most cases yes, you can tow with your Electric Vehicle. Rated towing capacities vary from 2000 lbs up to 5200 lbs. The large torque of electric motors make for a great tow vehicle but you need to keep an eye on your range.
I went with the optional towing hitch on my Tesla. Though it’s hard to admit, it really had nothing to do with towing anything. The hitch makes for an excellent attachment for the bike rack.
It going me thinking though, how good would my car be at towing? Can EV’s even tow anything? So I did a little research.
It turns out that EV’s are actually quite capable of towing. They can’t compare to a giant 7 litre Diesel, but they weren’t really intended for that either.
They can however pull a good size trailer and cargo without much of a sweat thanks to the powerful motors.
There is a caveat to this though and it’s range. This will be dependent on the size and weight of your trailer of course, but towing that extra weight has a significant impact on your total range.
Let’s get familiar with some towing terms first. Knowing the difference between gross weight and tongue weight is the difference bewteen getting to your destination or camping in the ditch.
- Payload is the weight of all of the gear, passengers plus the tongue weight of the trailer, it does NOT include the weight of your vehicle.
- Gross vehicle weight is the total weight of the car, passengers, gear, and fuel plus the tongue weight of an attached trailer.
- Trailer Gross vehicle weight is the total weight of the trailer with all contents.
- Dry weight is how much the camper weighs without adding any water, gas or gear.
- Curb weight is the weight of the vehicle without any payload or passengers. Gross vehicle weight minus payload.
- Combined gross vehicle weight is the total weight the manufacture has determined the vehicle can handle including the vehicle, all passengers, cargo, and fuel plus attached trailers.
- Max trailer weight is the most amount of weight that a vehicle can tow.
- Tongue weight is the amount of weight the tongue will put on the hitch.
- Max tongue weight is the maximum amount of weight that can be put on the hitch and is included in the max payload. This can vary depending on the type of hitch being used.
- Max trailer payload is the maximum amount of gear, water and gas that can be safely carried in the trailer. The dry weight plus the max trailer payload is the trailers gross vehicle weight.
So, let’s take a Model X as an example. With a range of 325 Miles. Towing an extra 5000 lbs could reduce your range by half or more if steep inclines are part of your destination. Electric cars are extremely efficient, but they lack energy density. This is where you see the significant drop in range when towing, especially at the limit. If you want to stretch your brain, Engineering Explained made an interesting video about this.
I’m not going to argue with his math, trigonometry was never my favourite subject but real world scenarios seem to differ slightly. Taking an informal poll, average range loss across all trailer sizes from 500 lbs to 4500 Lbs comes to 30%
The takeaway from that is the lighter trailer the better. A pop up, or utility trailer will have a much smaller impact on your range then a loaded up camper at the top of your rated tow capacity.
That said, Tesla certainly expects you to be able to tow with it. The Tesla Model X comes with “Trailer Mode” that activates when a trailer is connected enabling “Trailer Sway Mitigation”, which uses automatic braking of the vehicle’s individual wheels to prevent a trailer from swaying back and forth. It will also disable many of its driver-assistance features like automatic steering, full self driving and the parking sensors.
I’ve used a Tesla in this example, but many EV’s come from the factory with a rated tow capacity. Here’s a current list of the EV’s available and their rated tow capacities.
| EV Towing Capacity | ||
| Make | Model | Capacity / LBS |
| Audi | E-tron | 4000 |
| Chevy | Bolt | 5200 |
| Chevy | Volt | 2000 |
| Ford | Mustang Mach E | 4400 |
| Hyundai | Kona | 5000 |
| Hyundai | Ioniq EV | 2000 |
| Jaguar | Ipace | 5200 |
| Kia | Niro EV | 2800 |
| Mitsubishi | Outlander PHEV | 3500 |
| Nissan | Leaf | 2000 |
| Tesla | Model 3 | 2000 |
| Tesla | Model Y | 3500 |
| Tesla | Model X | 5000 |
| Tesla | Model S | 2000 |
Things are only improving however. Tesla’s hotly anticipated Cybertruck with its Tri Motor AWD model is said to be able to tow as much as 14,000 pounds and have a range of 500 miles. The Single Motor RWD will tow 7,500 pounds with a 250-mile range and the middle range Dual Motor AWD will provide 10,000 pounds and 300 miles. This doesn’t include towing, but the expected larger battery size coming along with the Cybertruck should help offset it’s density issues.
If your towing needs fall towards the lighter side, the data is clear. Weekend warrior trailer, be it a trip to home depot or a light camping trip will be well within the capabilities of your EV.
If you are pulling a large trailer and your campground is 100+ miles away, frankly.. if you’re making that trip often a good ICE truck is the way to go.
I’ve put a lot of thought into this issue as I wrote this post, personally, I would take the limited tow range along with the other benefits of EV ownership. I may tow a trailer a couple times of year in the summer. I may have to make a stop to charge a lot sooner than I would have hoped, but.. for every other day of the year, I would be way ahead then I would be with a gasoline engine.
As all things in life, nothing is perfect. Consider your needs. Perhaps you’re with me or perhaps you’ll be shopping for that F150.. which will probably be electric soon anyways!
