A couple from Western Australia has firmly put to rest the idea that an EV “won’t tow ya trailer” after completing a big lap of the country in a Tesla Model 3 while towing a caravan.
TheDriven caught up with Sarah White and Shane Parker (known online under their pseudonyms Atto Gal and Gandalf while they were part way through their trip. Now they’ve returned home to Perth after completing 17,251 kilometres over 40 days.
“It was a fantastic experience. I highly recommend anyone do it in any vehicle that they’ve got available to them,” White told TheDriven.
“To see the Great Barrier Reef, the gorges across the Northwest, the incredible scenery around Victoria River … it’s great to be out in those remote, regional areas of Australia.”
The car went through 3,845 kWh of power throughout the trip, and had an average consumption of 223 Wh/km. White and Parker also joined the ‘zero per cent club’ on a number of occasions, as the app they use (S3XY) gave them enough information to be able to know the exact number of usable kWh in the car batteries.
The Model 3 with caravan was able to do a maximum of 247 kilometres in one stretch, but they mostly aimed for around 200 kilometres in any one go.
Although the caravan weighed just 750kg, well under the Tesla Model 3’s towing limit of 1000 kg, it originally had the ‘aerodynamics of a brick’.
To fix this, Parker – who is an engineer – made a number of modifications to ensure it would produce less drag, and even installed a 16 kWh battery and solar panels in the caravan to create a sort of “renewable power station” that the pair could plug into to top up in between charging stops.
“From a comfort perspective, the most important modifications were the addition of the air conditioner and king-sized bed!” said White.
“From a practical perspective, obviously the solar panels, batteries and inverter were the modifications which allowed us to complete the lap when we did.
“In peak tourist season, there is power available at a caravan park in one long stretch and at a station at another, but these were closed as it was off-season, so without the ability to charge from the van we wouldn’t have been able to do the trip when we did it.”
You can read more about the specifics of the modifications in our previous reporting.
The battery in the caravan allowed White and Parker to charge almost anywhere, but the heat of the outback did cause them strife was near Halls Creek in WA.
“The temperature sensor in the inverter in the van tripped out just as a safety override. We’re charging and then suddenly we’re not charging,” said White.
“But as soon as we put the air conditioning on in the van it cooled down the inverter and that kicked back in again. And then we realised, well, we had a nice cool area to sit so why don’t we put the van up and sit in there.”
When the couple weren’t charging the Tesla from the caravan, they used DC chargers where they were available. However, a number of charger parks aren’t made for cars with tows, and so they either had to block both spots (although they would quickly move if someone else arrived), or detach the caravan from the vehicle.
“That’s one of the things I think hasn’t been well thought out, because originally, people weren’t thinking that far ahead,” said White.
“As more and more EVs are going to have the capacity to tow … it’ll be tricky unless they start retrofitting some of them with drive through sites for charging.”
White says that for the two of them, the main goal of the journey was having an enjoyable holiday, but the second reason was to see if it was possible.
“We think it’s possible, but no one’s ever tried it – so let’s try it,” she said.
“What we were hoping to demonstrate – whilst enjoying ourselves – was that your daily drive EV can be used to get you on a nice holiday.”