EV Towing: Can the F150 Lightning Tow a Trailer?

[@deanmay338]

Kudos to Escape Trailers, Karl, and Harrison. Thank you for all your videos. I am particularly impressed with you guys cranking out a video about an electric vehicle. You guys sell trailers, but you recognize the importance of towing and the cutting edge relevance of EVs. Outstanding! Keep those videos coming, particularly about the up and coming Escape 23! ;)

[@willberg12]

Being able to use my Rivian for shore power is a huge plus. No need for for a solar setup

[@mitchmartin2659]

I have a Mach E and just bought an F150 Lightning XLT. The thing about these vehicles is if you are travelling outside your normal range, you cannot be in a hurry.

[@ClockworkCrane]

Also I'm glad you mentioned using the truck as shore power for the trailer. Not many of the youtubers I follow have mentioned this but I think it will be very useful. It's harder with the Rivian since there's only 1.5 kW of inverter output available, but it would work for a trailer that's not running any heavy loads. Would love to see y'all test that out on an Escape. 🙂

[@willberg12]

Also, it's so fun zooming past bigass trucks when towing up hill

[@DanMcLaughlin]

Appreciate you did a typical and not torture test, however there’s a lot missing. One is the I can’t make sense of your range information at the end - you needed to figure out the energy spent to travel that distance. Estimated range is _not_ useful because it’s an estimate. Second nobody is going to use L2 to charge while on the road, you use a DCFC and get it done in an hour (and the Lightning doesn’t have particularly fast charging either, unlike the upcoming Silverado which has 350kW)

[@scratchsescape1978]

I just priced an XLT with the only options extended range battery and tow package. $85300 USD.

[@JoeTourist]

Stating that the recharge time of 10 hours is an issue is quite misleading. The vehicle will likely be recharged at a campsite, hopefully with an RV 220/240v electrical service. This is an overnight charge when typically the family is sleeping in the trailer - an ideal situation for a slow 10-hour charge. When towing on a road trip and wanting to make time, Fast DC charging will be used, where the charging time goes down to less than an hour, even if the F-150 Lightning has the larger propulsion battery. Have some lunch and the vehicle will be ready to go on the next leg of the journey. You also didn't mention the towing smarts built into the F-150 Lightning, nor the in-vehicle navigation which will give accurate guidance to the driver along the route for charging, expected and real-time energy consumption, and other useful information when on a road trip.

[@dgflater]

Great points Joe.

[@ericlee8950]

How do you accomplish this if the trailer is plugged in to the service. Genuinely curious as I'm taking my lightning camping next weekend with a travel trailer.

[@JoeTourist]

@@ericlee8950 1. Alternate the connection to the main power between the F-150 and trailer. 2. Charge the F-150 at a fast charger elsewhere after you've setup the trailer. 3. Plug the F-150 into the main power and plug the trailer into the F-150's power outlets.

[@bookmang]

My main problem with using a EV for towing is that most charging stations are set up for one vehicle. How do you charge the truck when using a public charging stations with the trailer attached?

[@ieatpinecones98]

Shhh….you’re not supposed to have common sense. Quit pointing out obvious issues.

[@ieatpinecones98]

@@GK49245 they disconnected it the one time because of how the charger was set up. Other time they pulled behind the charger. Depends on set up.

[@GhiIIie]

That and the fact that EVs are all about government control and they can shut off your vehicle in a moments notice. Its not about the environment or energy consumption, just a few days ago Sweden banned the use of EV’s due to their energy shortage

[@ieatpinecones98]

@@GhiIIie true shit!

[@cnobillbradley9673]

Damn tootin’ great infrastructure question.

[@a.stewartlamb3694]

Thanks Karl for your commitment to sustainable energy in the RV world. Looking forward to an escape 23 built for us!

[@cnobillbradley9673]

I was looking at the Ford Lightning. As usual you guys are right on top of things. Thanks for the info.

[@ClockworkCrane]

Thanks for this! As a Rivian R1T owner I'm looking forward to towing a trailer with it. I don't think the range will be as much of an issue if high-speed DC fast chargers (150 kW+) with pull-through stalls become widespread. But at the moment it is still very much an early adopter experience for towing.

[@MichaelHaertel]

You guys should be loaning out pairs or sets of trailers to KZbinrs that are doing fair comparisons….most are really biased. It’s cheap marketing. I’d love to see the 5.0TA + Lightning Extended Range actual power consumption across a couple thousand miles! Planning to buy that setup if I can find some better real world data and starting a KZbin channel. Starting around November.

[@jerrythechainsawguy8100]

I wonder if the range towing would be better if the electric motors had some kind of a transmission. I certainly feel pedaling a bike is easier with gears. Would gearing not make more efficiency for towing?

[@shawnhowell7175]

Thanks for doing this! We have a new F150 Lightning Lariat Extended Range and my parents have an Escape 19. Planning a trip with it now to get the answers your video is providing me with. Please discuss the shore power option to be sure we have the right adapters.

[@johnnyhung123]

I love seeing this😃. Thanks Karl ans Harrison. I am patiently waiting for technology and consumer adaptation to catch on more. It would be an ideal setup for me to have my all electric E21 be towed by a Etruck. I would definitely improve on my solar capability to perhaps allow charging the truck when I am boondocking. I foresee that in the summer time with higher sun angle and longer days that I can divert some charge into the truck. My current 2120 Watt solar scheme can produce 10Kwh to maximum 14Kwh per day in the summer time. In an emergency, I can put in a few miles of charge to the truck to get me out of trouble if needed. Johnny

[@doug1olson]

You talked about time to charge to 100%, but for road tripping the recommendation from most people is to charge to 80%, which is much faster than 100%. Plenty of KZbin videos about that.

[@corystansbury]

Correct, when dealing with fast charge DC, the last 20% take a while. When on AC, it's constant (can't provide enough power to challenge the maximum current), but good practice to only use 80% for daily use--> Depth of Discharge and time spent at high pack voltage being important to lithium ion battery life (referring to most chemistries. LiFePo is less impacted, but also less energy dense to start with). Clearly, if one knows they are towing the next day, they can top off to 100% to get the maximum first leg range.

[@brucejohnson1264]

So if my calculations are correct, in imperial units, the F-150 lightning can tow a maximum of about 120 miles max while towing with the standard battery, if you keep the speed reasonable. That seems in-line what what I have seen for all electric trucks. I assume that trailer is empty, so probably more like 4,000 lbs.?

[@jmgraydz]

7x16 enclosed trailer i am getting 180 miles with a flat front

[@robgrune3284]

Escape TT are among the very best. Thanks for this vid. Proves the Ford EV is useless. The demo is too limited. In real conditions (wind, hills, acceleration, etc) the most range (reported by a real owner towing a similar 19ft TT) is only 100km. Useless.

[@jeffreyrichards922]

For every uphill there is descent, aka regenerative braking. The video leads you to believe 10- hours to charge, but on a trip along interstates DCFC is fairly available which a typical recharge is about 30 minutes for the extended range battery. The Ford EV is not useless its a first generation pickup truck EV and is already challenging the ICE mindset, only going to get better from here.