We ditched our stinky diesel ute, and hit the road with an EV and tourist trailer

A former Prime Minister told us EVs would ruin our weekends. The basis for this election campaign claim was, it seemed, the perceived need for big heavy ICE tanks that tow big heavy loads … no compromise.

Recently, hubby and I had cause to reflect on and chuckle over this past era of thinking. Now, in 2025, Australia is poised to enjoy the same level of practicality and capability of EVs as we’ve had with big guzzling beasts of the past. EVs are already towing the same weights as, and more than, many ICE vehicles.

Most of these wonderful beasts are just not in Australia – yet. EV manufacturers are slowly but surely looking to Australia’s market which is poised for bigger, better, safer batteries, big towing capacity, and off-roading.

Until this new onslaught arrives, we and many other EV owners are having plenty of fun with the towing capacity we currently have. Our weekends are just perfect, thanks.

Having put our stinky diesel Ford Ranger Wildtrak and glamp-friendly camper trailer life behind us for good reasons, including the environment, we shifted our thinking around leisure and holidays to a new EV-based model – including towing.

The Long, Long Road

A few months ago, our 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 silently took us 5,710 kms over 54 days, from our home in the Adelaide Hills across south-east SA, south-west Victoria, and into Tasmania and back, towing a custom-built ‘tourist’ trailer.

Most intriguing was how many other EVs were towing a variety of trailers and toys. Plenty of conversations were had on the street with their drivers and others interested to chat and to check out our rig.

What’s a Tourist Trailer?

Starting with our EV as our base vehicle, instead of a ute, we then spent our capital not on a tricked-up, kitted-out camper trailer, but on a $4000 custom-built trailer capable of carrying everything we need for a fun and comfortable holiday.

Except the beds and baths…for those we stayed in cottage and farmstay accommodation, for a week at a time once we reached Tassie.

Tip: A week in one place is a long stay in Tassie, so we enjoyed discounted rates at these private accommodations.

It Ain’t Heavy; It’s our Trailer

The key was to keep the chassis and canopy, once loaded with our ‘stuff’, below our very reasonable braked capacity of 1.6 tonnes. Some EVs have more capacity, some less. Our unbraked limit is a generous 750kgs. We found we didn’t need to brake the trailer.

Once we determined with the manufacturer what the net trailer, spare wheel, canopy and drawbar would weigh, it was clear that we had plenty of weight allowance for all our other gear – and us.

The final rig has two gullwings, giving us rain shelter when open and access from either or both sides. There is 6’ x 4’ of space inside with 1500mm metre of height. The drawbar was custom-extended to hold our two 25kg e-bikes and their ISI heavy duty offroad rack. A Stone Stomper keeps it all pristine.

The Comforts of Home

With our 95l 12v fridge, plenty of pantry supplies, a few dozen cases of wine to kick us off, a pile of camera gear and laptops, all manner of clothing, boots etc. for all Tassie’s seasons, all our bike gear and spares and tools and sundry other supplies, we wanted for nothing and forgot nothing.

A trip to our local weigh station told us the grand net-of-EV total of all this luxury, fun and safety, was 550kgs. Imagine what we could tow if we fitted a braking system!

Why bother to document our story with only that much weight on board? Because at this stage in Australia’s EV evolution, it will be travellers like us who can take full advantage of the benefits of EVs without concerns about large-scale towing.

With or without a braking system, the weekend warriors can tow boats, jetskis, kayak trailers, trailbikes, horsefloats – all types of toys. There are plenty of lightweight compact camper trailers, too. We hope our story informs about the availability and security of capacity, range and driveability.

The Lodgings

A big factor in our new holiday model was glamping versus real bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens. Climbing into a camper bed after a night around the campfire has an adventurous cachet about it.

It takes a shift in thinking to holiday in a building, but they have firepits, too. At older ages, with not-so-healthy knees and hips, a new approach seemed timely as well as cost effective.

We analysed the financial trade-off we were considering: capital spent and tied up in an ICE vehicle and camper trailer rig with the in-driveway on-costs and maintenance, versus trip-by-trip spend on comfortable, not quite 5-star accommodations while EV towing our life’s needs in the tourist trailer. The results were satisfyingly positive.

The Cost to Range

While the rigged ride was as smooth as silk and it was hard to perceive we had a load on, there was of course a cost to our range. Our test drive, on a duplicated route covering both SA hills and plains on days with the same temperatures of 30 degrees, comparing the empty car against a full packed rig revealed a load cost of 25%.

On the real route, with Tassie’s roads often being very windy and steep, we lost between 20 and 35 percent. During each one-week lodging, the trailer was unhitched and used as storage, the bike rack was hitched direct onto the car and we were back to normal driving ranges for all our day trips.

A Charging Dilemma?

Our research found smart and friendly accommodation owners who recognise that EVs don’t use much power. For the nightly top-ups, we ensured to pre-arrange to plug in our 240v 3-pin ‘granny charger’ in carports and garages.

We knew we’d also be doing some public charging for the longer day-trips. We tallied up 21 public charges, with our total spend on ‘fuel’ for this 54-day trip being $465.55. Tassie’s charging infrastructure is brilliant, we found, with new ones being added to Plugshare even while we were there.

Chargefox is heavily represented, even across the citizen-funded network called Electric Highway Tasmania, which is excellent. The software, hardware and service worked perfectly, even to ‘fixing’ an inoperative bay we reported, while we had a coffee. We were notified it was fixed and we plugged in, only 20 minutes later.

Most surprising and gratifying, though, was the unexpected ease of driving ‘through’ the many reversing-style charge bays rather than having to unhitch. We timed our longer distances from base town to base town to happen on weekdays, meaning we had no more than two waits over that whole time.

We had to unhitch just once in the whole trip: our charge in Stawell in Victoria was inadvertently planned for the weekend of the annual Stawell Gift race. A 12-bay public charging station was packed and we unhitched due to the demand. We did however spend the charging time at a brewery 10 metres away.

Tip: don’t plan too long a stay at a brewery or restaurant if you’re fast charging at a public (not a destination) charger…there’s hardly time for more than one beer!

The Verdict

The financial comparison – fossil fuelled capital-intensive camping to electric vehicle and trailer luxury – came out very much on the positive side in terms of years of holiday costs.

The comparisons in other areas such as comfort and convenience were, for our time of life, unquestionably positive. We’re carrying on…

Want the latest EV news delivered straight to your inbox? Subscribe to our free daily newsletter