Can I make it to the lake and back with my bassboat?

[DonnieHarper]

Lots of great threads and info on towing. Given that 31% of us that responded to the towing poll plan to tow a boat, I would love to hear thoughts on whether i can make it to the lake and back with my bassboat without supercharging, and if so, how much battery energy, if any, I would have left when I get home. Here's my scenario - CT3, fully charged at 560 miles, round trip of 298 miles, towing a dual axle bassboat weighing 5225 lbs (boat, trailer, fuel, gear, but no cover to reduce drag), 70% of the trip will be interstate traveling at 75 mph (yes - I know the posted speed limit is 70!), and the other 30% of the trip running at 60 mph.

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[Crissa]

Pulling a trailer at 75mph isn't legal in any place I went to traffic school. That aside...

...No one knows the energy consumption of the Cybertruck or the drag profile of your trailer, so they can't answer this question. Too many assumptions to be made.

A 500-mile range vehicle would be able to accept a 40% range penalty and still make your supposed trip.

But why isn't the truck charging on this trip? You drive four hours without eating or using a rest stop for biological needs? It sits at the lake without charging?

-Crissa

 

[DonnieHarper]

The usual day for a bass fisherman begins at 3am and driving straight to the lake or river, with maybe one quick stop for ice. The truck sits all day until the tourney is over. By the time you come off of the water 8-10 hours later, you are ready to head straight home! If i do stop on the way home, I would have to disconnect the trailer just to charge - which will be a pain at either of the two superchargers on my route. I take your point about the many variables, but was curious to know if others believe the profile and weight of a bassboat would give me more range than many of the other trailer towing questions already posted.

 

[Crissa]

If i do stop on the way home, I would have to disconnect the trailer just to charge...

...which makes an assumption that trailer-supporting chargers won't be available in the future. Because today there are no vehicles that reasonably tow and need charging, why would they have charging stalls for them?

Most of the fishing ramps have power nearby today, all they would need is some type of 25kW charging to completely refill your truck while it sat there.

When the first gasoline cars were being sold there weren't enough gas stations, either.

-Crissa

 

[ajdelange]

whether i can make it to the lake and back with my bassboat without supercharging, and if so, how much battery energy, if any, I would have left when I get home. Here's my scenario - CT3, fully charged at 560 miles, round trip of 298 miles, towing a dual axle bassboat weighing 5225 lbs (boat, trailer, fuel, gear, but no cover to reduce drag), 70% of the trip will be interstate traveling at 75 mph (yes - I know the posted speed limit is 70!), and the other 30% of the trip running at 60 mph.

No. Definitely not. The range of the TriMotor is going to be right around 500 mi EPA. You do not fully charge and discharge your battery. For an occasional trip of this sort it is OK to go 10% to 90% so that gives you a nominal EPA working range of 400 miles. An open trailer loaded to 5225 lbs will cut that back to possibly 300 miles and perhaps 200 or fewer especially if speeds of 60 - 75 mph are involved (EPA range is a good indication at 45 - 50 mph i.e. a mixture of town and freeway)

You indicate that you have an X. Tow the trailer with that and measure the required Wh/mi required at various speeds and use that to determine what to expect with the CT.

 

[Newton]

You indicate that you have an X. Tow the trailer with that and measure the required Wh/mi required at various speeds and use that to determine what to expect with the CT.

and tell us what happens

 

[Crissa]

No. Definitely not. ...

You indicate that you have an X. Tow the trailer with that and measure the required Wh/mi required at various speeds and use that to determine what to expect with the CT.

This is not useful.

The X doesn't have the same cross-setional and it has (relatively) a small battery. It is not designed for heavy loads. So it will not be efficient to pull the weight, it won't efficiently create a slipstream for the trailer, and so just won't be a good example. An X will lose far more range than a Cybertruck will.

And 'definitely not' is also untrue. There are already built-in safety margins for the battery. If you tell it to be charged at 100% at the time of departure, it doesn't spend appreciable time at 100%. You don't have to cap yourself to 90% all the time. And then on the way back, you don't care that you dip below the 10% because you're going to plug right back in. And sure, you want to have a 10% safety margin so when you do the trip in the cold or have to detour, you have to safety margin, it's not like there isn't a place to charge on the way ever to get a couple miles to finish the run.

Sure, it's not something you want to do every day, but it won't kill it to do it every day if you only spend a few minutes are 0% and 100%, either.

-Crissa

 

[ajdelange]

and tell us what happens

As people might be interested I'd better expand on what we are looking for. That is the number of Wh it takes to tow the trailer 1 mile under a specific set of conditions. This would be a very simple thing to determine if the hitch had a load cell in it (and I really hope the CT hitch will as this would be of great benefit to the promised towing software) but as it doesn't about all you can do is tow the trailer over some course and record the Wh used and then repeat without the trailer. The difference is the energy that went into towing the trailer. Clearly if the towing conditions are not exactly the same then error is introduced. For example if the trailer is towed into a 10 mph headwind which dies for the X only run the data are not really comparable. As you will never be able to drive in exactly the same way you will never get as good a number as the load cell would give but you are really only looking for rough numbers here. If pulling the trailer to the lake uses 560 Wh/mi and the same trip without the nominal 280 for an X then your X range is cut in half as the trailer is using another 280. Note that the range of the CT would not be so seriously effected as its nominal consumption is expexted to be about 450 Wh/mi and range reduction would, therefore, be to 450/(450 + 280) = 62%

 

[Crissa]

...its nominal consumption is expexted to be about 450 Wh/mi

Got a cite on that?

Because if I recall, you'd bounced around up to 1kWh/mi.

-Crissa

 

[rodmacpherson]

Lots of great threads and info on towing. Given that 31% of us that responded to the towing poll plan to tow a boat, I would love to hear thoughts on whether i can make it to the lake and back with my bassboat without supercharging, and if so, how much battery energy, if any, I would have left when I get home. Here's my scenario - CT3, fully charged at 560 miles, round trip of 298 miles, towing a dual axle bassboat weighing 5225 lbs (boat, trailer, fuel, gear, but no cover to reduce drag), 70% of the trip will be interstate traveling at 75 mph (yes - I know the posted speed limit is 70!), and the other 30% of the trip running at 60 mph.

For a pretty extreme example,

This guy towed a large, un-aerodynamic camper trailer for about 86 miles and determined that with that camper he gets around 100 miles of range in a model Y with a full battery:

 

[Cyberman]

Based on my calculations, you'll have enough range even after a beer stop and a detour at the stripper joint. Go.
BTW, your CT should be able to tell you at the beginning of the trip if you'll need to stop for a juice bump, and where.

 

[Newton]

whats the rated range normally of the model Y that video had?
also didnt watch the video much but it looked really flat, mountains a no-no i guess

 

[Crissa]

whats the rated range normally of the model Y that video had?

300 miles on a 75kWh battery.

But it doesn't have a very large cross-section, and so was almost entirely at the mercy of the trailer. The Y isn't really designed for that weight, either, which may have lost it more range, too.

-Crissa

 

[ajdelange]

Based on my calculations, you'll have enough range even after a beer stop and a detour at the stripper joint.

Your calculations are in error. Mine are too, BTW, but I try to make it clear that mine are just estimates. Until an operator knows how much energy the trailer consumes under the anticipated driving conditions there is no way to calculate energy usage for the trip. Monte Carlo simulations making "reasonable" assumptions suggest that halving of EPA range is probably OK as a first order guess when a typical trailer is driven in typical fashion at speeds below 60. Using that as a ROT OP's 500 mi CT is a 250 mi CT and that's less than his round trip. His indication that he will be driving at 65 - 70 for most of the trip makes it all but certain that he'll have to stop for charge.

BTW, your CT should be able to tell you at the beginning of the trip if you'll need to stop for a juice bump, and where.

The current Tesla portfolio does that now with displays of warnings such as "Reduce speed below 65 mph to reach your destination", yellow and red lines on the utilzation graphs etc. But Musk has promised some sort of trailering software. IF he puts a load cell in the trailer hitch the truck will know exactly how much power is going to the trailer as a function of time and what fraction of the total power consumption that is. With the predictive algorithms will be even more accurate.

 

[rodmacpherson]

...which makes an assumption that trailer-supporting chargers won't be available in the future. ...

-Crissa

So true. They will be coming. I have seen plans for Superchargers with wider spaces specifically for cybertruck.

Although not really officially set up for it, I think you could charge in any of the 4 spots I have marked at the local Supercharger without unhitching a trailer

as long as you were respectful of the other cars there.