this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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So I guess you’d have to either fill up your trailer with gas or charge it. Now that’s two vehicles you have to power, which kind of defeats the purpose of towing anyway.
It seems a better solution would be a PHEV with a large battery and a range extender for when you need to tow....why on earth do this?
I could see this working if it was hardwired to the lead vehicle for data over a wire and that would also include a safety tether. Since it seems to be aimed at EV owners, give it a big ass battery and allow it to share power with the lead car to extend the range of the pair. If the trailer give you longer range on your road trips, let you have one plug to charge both vehicles at each charge stop, and had a safety tether and did the data wired rather than wirelessly, I could see some rich folks springing for it. As advertised it sounds like a bad joke from a b rated 90s scifi movie
Even then it seems far less practical than building a PHEV where the range extender really only is used during towing. There really isn't a practical gain here except that it's another thing a manufacturer can sell, repair, and upsell you on. Diesel electric locomotives still exist and until rails are fully electric will continue to exist.
Fuck it. Why not just get a little steering wheel and a little person to drive your little tow truck behind you? No need to worry about losing Wi-Fi signal.
I can see the theoretical benefit, but yeah, I wouldn't trust it.
If you're a person with a car with no hauling capabilities, and no one to borrow a truck or van from, this should be a nice solution.
But yeeeaaaah, no thanks.
I feel like self driving trucks would be viable before the safety issues for this are worked out.
Electric vehicles lose a lot more range when towing than diesel vehicles, and they take longer to charge.
This would be a good option for a family that has an EV, but doesn't want to drive an 8,000# EV day to day, just needs the extra juice when towing.
You could use an EV motor home, but then if you wanted a smaller vehicle with to drive around at your destination, you'd have to either drive that separately, or town that vehicle.
This is a solution for people to have a single, smaller EV that can bring an existing travel trailer for vacation.
This is EXACTLY the type of thing that would help prevent people from "needing" an F-350 for day to day driving, cause they have a trailer they use twice a year.
Couldn't you instead add a massive battery to the trailer and physically connect both it and the trailer to the car. Essentially letting you tow a battery bank with extra storage? Like that you mitigate having to work out the safety issues and you don't have to pay for another set of motors etc.
You could upsell it by the trailer being extra battery for when you're camping f.ex.. And it could be modular, accepting a camping to / flatbed/ whatever.
Ford has filed for a patent
https://electrek.co/2023/07/13/ford-patents-portable-charging-trailer-power-ev/
here is a french startup
https://europe.autonews.com/blogs/french-startup-uses-battery-trailers-cure-ev-range-angst
and my personal favorite (no trailer, but 2 extra wheels for battery weight. (30 mpg in 1980)
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/classic-cars/a31667259/briggs-and-stratton-hybrid-jay-lenos-garage/
Not surprised people are working on it.
It's a real shame that we can't get swappable batteries in my opinion. Standardise the technology and retrofit gas stations. Maybe there could even be a smart way to use the batteries in storage as a buffer in the grid, needed with the increase of renewable energy.
Not yet for cars, but I'll dream for now
Scooters with battery exchange/charging kiosk
https://www.gogoro.com/
Nicola already has a portable charging setup for its EV tractor trailers. At least they’re marketing one. I don’t know what’s actually in production.
But really there’s already an EV trailer with motors and a battery to make towing with an EV more possible. They picked a stupid name though. https://pebblelife.com/
I think the big advantage here is you could rent the doohickey, rather than buying a massive battery bank you'll only use a few times a year.
why not both? make it a thing you rent when you need it that also extends the range of your EV when you are on a long road trip without making you haul around extra batteries/weight during your normal commute. If they did this with a data cable and a safety cable and allowed the caravan to share power with the tow car I think it's actually a neat idea
The doohickey could still be attached physically to the car. It's probably cheaper to add a hitch than the necessary tech for this to work remotely.
I can definitely see a use case for a powered dolly for vehicles with poor range or low towing capacity.
Of course it takes longer to charge. Who charges a diesel vehicle?
/s just in case.
I think a way better solution would be to just borrow a bigger car for those two days a year.