Image: Nic C via X
Nearly four months after Tesla began delivering Tesla Cybertrucks, an owner has been spotted towing a large caravan and using a drive-thru Tesla supercharger bay.
A photo of a matte-black wrapped Cybertruck was shared on X by Nic Cruz showing the parked Cybertruck at one of these drive-thru bays.
The silver caravan being pulled appears to be much larger than the Cybertruck which stands at over 5.6 metres in length.
On the back of this sighting, a Cybertruck lead engineer, Wes, commented on the focus around drive-thru chargers and the upcoming updates to the user interface to show “trailer-friendly” superchargers: “Supercharger team is always looking for opportunities to install these at new locations. Will show trailer friendly stalls on the in-vehicle UI to make it easier when road tripping with a trailer”.
That is good news as unhitching isn’t always possible at charging station sites and will help with better route planning for drivers looking at towing trailers, caravans, boats and other larger objects.
Andy D, an Australian EV enthusiast also chimed into this discussion by highlighting that we need to have more drive-thru bays locally along with getting the Cybertruck downunder: “Could do with these around Australia Wes – no shortage of land or solar here. There is, however, a notable shortage of Cybertrucks down under… 😭😭”.
The Tesla Cybertruck has some impressive towing credentials. It is capable of having nearly 5 tonnes of towing capacity, coming in at 4,990 kg towing capacity according to Tesla’s Australian website.
Last month, one recent owner who happen to run a recreation vehicle (RV) dealership had taken towing with the vehicle to another level by towing a caravan that weighs almost 5-tonne.
The weight and the sheer size of the RV being towed made that setup quite interesting to observe. The Sandpiper Destination caravan which was being towed by this owner comes in at 12 meters in length, which is more than twice the length of the already huge Cybertruck.
Energy consumption while towing the Cybetruck was around 1,500 Wh/mile or 932 Wh/km. This would give the truck a range of around 130 km. This would require multiple charging stops on longer trips.
Locally a Tesla supercharger site that could potentially be used as a drive-thru charging station is at Campbelltown in NSW.
With more drive-thru bay-equipped Tesla supercharger sites starting to appear in the US, it would be interesting to see if this trend continues here in Australia.
Tesla does offer a standard towing package with the Model Y which would see more drivers wanting to use superchargers without having to unhitch, making towing with EVs a lot simpler.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.
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