TOWING WITH A ELECTRIC VEHICLE.

[w3526602]

Hi,

The concensus of opinion seems to be that you must not tow with an electric vehicle.

A neighbour (several doors away) has a new TESLA (and a charging point on his front wall, wired into his meter box, which is not a deal busting price).

I haven't yet managed to knock on his front door while he is home, but it will come. Yesterday he drove past my house, with a MICROLIGHT CARAVAN on the hook. Is there something I'm missing? (about par for the my course).

I can feel a GOOGLE coming over me.

602

PS Some years ago, somebody, somewhere, raised the matter of pristine Range Rovers being imported from Japan. Something in my memory banks about a question of cars from the Japanese Market not having the towing capacity shown on their VIN Plate. The Japanese have no need, nor desire to tow a trailer.

[Boxoftricks]

You can tow with an electric vehicle. Same as non-electric the energy required per mile increases - Shorter battery and shorter tank range.  Electric cars have towing specs available.

[Richard]

As I understand it, you can tow something, a caravan, a horse trailer, with an electric car, but it's quite a drain on the battery. So you can go on holiday with a Tesla with caravan (max 2.500 kg for the X, 500 kg for an MG4), but at the cost of greater range anxiety. Over here (Netherlands) on the registration card often a max weight to tow is not mentioned. So you would have to first pass by the RDW, your DVLA I guess, with manufacturer documents to have the towing capabilities registered.
Richard

[Gareth]

With all the torque from zero mph available, electric propulsion would be ideal for towing a trailer/caravan. As said the range would suffer, as it does in an ice car. So you would need to charge more often, as you need to fill a fuel tank more often when towing.

The next issue would be that you can't park a car caravan outfit in any charging station I've come across. You would need the unhitch and park the caravan somewhere whilst you charged the car. An inconvenience at best, and possibly a security risk, with caravans regularly getting stolen.

[Craig T]

You just need to look if the vehicle is approved for towing or not.
Back in the day you could bolt a tow bar onto anything and tow with it. These days the manufacturers state if the car can be used for towing and if so, what the maximum weight limit is that you can tow.

I have a P38 Range rover and the towing limit for that is 3500Kg with a braked trailer off course. I have a horse box and am happy towing with that and two horses in the back.
A friend of ours tows the same horse box that weighs 900Kg with two horses in the back with a Subaru Forester which is only rated to tow 1600Kg. With two horses in the back, she is seriously pushing the limits and if pulled aside for a weight check by plod, would be in trouble I reckon.

I also own a tiny little Toyota iQ and that is not rated to tow at all. You can get tow bars from Europe but only for bike carrier use. If I was to tow anything behind that car, no matter how light, it would be illegal.

Craig.

[autorover1]

I was just going to post similar. If there is isn't a Train weight on a vehicle with a  modern VIN plate , no towing allowed

[w3526602]

Hi All,

Thanks for prompt and explanatory response.

I doubt that we will ever again desire to own a caravan (other than as an extra bedroom for visitors) OT, my daughter's house, in Milton Keynes, built in mid-1980s, about the same time as my bungalow, came with planning permission to store a caravan (amongst other things) in/on the FRONT garden, but with the proviso that it may not be occupied overnight.

My understanding is but you had best research it yourself, that caravans in rear gardens are, or were, permitted to be occupied by overnight guests for up to 28 days in a year.

Open air markets, clay pigeon shooting, and motor racing, are (or were) permitted on only 14 days per year.

I think both paras above are described as PERMITTED DEVELOPMENT.(Google).

602

[Kev]

Is the caravan still in Milton Keynes?

[Theshed]

Many moons ago, we would do the booze cruise to Calais returning with a van full. Mainly Lager.
Apart from one occasion when we had miscalculated we where always under the permitted weight for whatever van we where in.
On one occasion having being pulled over just outside Dover for a 'routine' check a number of cars passed obviously heavily laden with the back end close to the floor.
I asked the VOSA chap why did they not pull up these cars, a genuine enquiry not a moan, he said as they did not have weight plates then they could not. If bothered the Police could pull for dangerous overload but it hard to prove, apparently ?
BTW, that one occasion ? We had to unload twenty cases and had 12 hours to collect. First services we asked a helpful chap in an Escort van for a favour.
He drove back, collected the twenty, we gave him five cases and both where on our merry way. 

[w3526602]

Is the caravan still in Milton Keynes?

Hi Kev,

Yes! It's been sitting in my daughter's front garden for several years. Our grand daughter used it for entertaining her (girl) friends, but I don't know if she still does. I doubt that the tyres are still safe to be used on the road. Why do you ask?

A couple of members have seen my "secret garden" ... close to 40ft front to rear, 15ft+ frontage, dropping to about 9ft at the rear, with 8ft high fences.
Unfortunately, my builder decided the 2 metre wide gates would suffice, so that will need sorting.

At the house I built in the Swansea Valley .... bungalow with attic bedrooms, all over two garages (mine 40ft x 14ft, and Barbara's 18ft x 14ft) I hung a 15cwt boat winch (£15?)from the gantry, to winch dead cars up the 20ft drive, and deep into my garage, but had to chock the wheels, and take another snatch, twice, when the reel became full of cable, but otherwise it was effortless to pull a LWB up the drive. Hmmm, I just remembered ... We ran our overdraft up to £55,000. in the early 19990s, while building that house ... all very informal.

I guess I'm going to have to do the same at this house, but first I will have to sort out linking half our tiny garage to the bungalow, with ceiling rails to shunt Barbara from room to room, to provide for an all singing, all dancing, 6, piece bathroom. The other half of the garage will become a man-cave, accessed from the rear garden.

Six piece bathroom? Bath + wheelchair accessible shower + hand basin + wheel chair accessible "hair washing" basin (Barbara's ablutions have been confined to bed baths for over a year now) + regular WC + Gentleman's "scatter can" (less water to flush - expensive stuff).

Hmmm! DVLC is part of the DofE. I wonder if I could claim a post-retirement "Staff Suggestion" reward for suggesting that "scatter cans" should be mandatory in all new builds? Save the planet? You read it here first!

602