The road trip trailering the boat to the coast has come and gone. It went well, towing with EV is great because of the always-available torque. I was surprised at how good the independent rear end was, noticeably less bump response transmitted from the trailer to the truck. The various towing aids in modern trucks help too: extended blind spot coverage, trailer hitch camera, range prediction, trailer light check mode, etc.
So it's all great, as long as you don't mind stopping every hour and a half. I knew going in that this is the shortcoming of the Standard Range battery in particular, and EV towing in general. Energy use due to increased drag from my boat/trailer rig went from an average 28 kWh/100 km to 42 kWh/100 km - a steep 50% increase. Once the truck 'learned' the energy characteristics of this trailer, it settled on 210 km of range at 100% state of charge (nominal full range for the SR is 385 km). But of course, out on the highway you don't go much past 80% charge because of etiquette and the steep slowdown in charge rate above 80%. So really what I'm playing with is about 180 km of driving, less a reasonable cushion, so 150 km - there's your hour and a half. The Extended Range pack improves on this somewhat, I could count on 200 km between stops when towing. for me, not worth the extra 20 grand up front. Others would have different needs/wants.
The trip went something like this:
- leave Penticton at 100%, charge in Princeton 18 minutes
- charge in Hope 35 minutes
- charge in Langley (Walnut Grove) 15 minutes
- arrive Secret Cove at 20%
- charged to 90% a few days later at Madeira Park (no trailer)
- same stops on return trip, longer charge in Hope due to upcoming net elevation gain
- round trip 962 km @ 42 kWh/100 km
- 373 kWh consumed
- total charging costs $184 ($0.19/km)
As with most things in life, you can take the glass half full or half empty point of view. I know the combination of freeway speeds and trailer drag is about the worst application going for an EV. This is not the main purpose for which the truck was intended, EV is at its best at lower speeds and stop/start town driving. But it still did the job, and we correctly estimated charging time and made the ferries with some spare time in hand. That extra hour spent at chargers would drive some people nuts, but I do this trip once a year so it didn't bother me. Mrs Sly had a plan to get the fresh food items for the cabin in Hope as she knew there was a supermarket across the parking lot from the chargers. At the same time I was dispatched to nearby liquor store to get beer, and fast food place for breakfast sandwiches. This worked out well, we actually needed a bit more time than the truck did. Another glass half full item would be that energy cost was half of what I'd spend in gas for the same trip.
On the way down (on a Thursday), we charged at full speed at Chevron chargers. They had lots of room for a truck/trailer and there was never any though of unhitching the boat. The return trip was on a Saturday afternoon and we encountered chargers on Power Conservation Mode; ie, running very slowly and we had to relocate to different network. Electrify Canada location in Hope is poky and we were fortunate that the one open charger was also the one trailer-friendly slot. No facilities like washroom or convenience store, not even a garbage can. In Princeton, the BC Hydro charger site was roomy but only ran at half the speed of the truck's capacity. We decided to make this our meal stop and enjoyed a lovely Greek dinner across the street. Worked out well, not so much if we had a ferry to catch or some other schedule constraint. One of these days, Ford will send my adapter for Tesla chargers and I'll have lots of options for reliably fast charging (but the most expensive).
Bottom line, I'll happily do this trip again next year. Add an hour and a half for charging rather than an hour, at least on the run to the ferry. The actual driving/towing experience is excellent, just know that a stop every hour and a half is part of the experience.
