JerryRigEverything: How far can the CYBERTRUCK tow 11,000lbs in Freezing Weather?

[scottyah]

a truck with a gas tank permitting of 500mi range in EPA combined conditions, in same conditions as these “tests”, would have essentially identical** reduction in range (as a %) as these trucks

so i disagree to this extent: “normal truck owners, who pay attention to and understand towing range, should absolutely expect these results”





**There could be some variation, but no more than there is variation between ICE trucks themselves

Towing a 21' ski boat with an '06 chevy Silverado across the arizona/utah desert brings the truck's average 18 mpg to 16 for the trip. I'm no mathematician, but it seems like the CT is doing a lot worse on range reduction.

The rest is just a rant at the posts I've been seeing in this thread, and not so relevant to your point:

I get there's a million factors, but until I start seeing numbers attached I can't believe that preconditioning, humidity, or playing the radio more quietly is going to have any material impact.

It makes sense to me what some people are saying about the CT being all aero and a trailer takes that away, whereas the silverado's aero is probably better with a boat attached.

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[cvalue13]

I don't think so, less aerodynamic vehicles take less of an efficiency penalty when towing a load.

I mean, fine, but you’re now describing the Lightning vs an ICE f150, and highlighting that an eg Ram truck (the most aerodynamic) will tow differently than an eg ICE Hummer.

Point being, these are all identical variables as between ICE vehicles as they are between ICE and BEV.

Also since ICE are such inefficient power plants they have plenty of waste heat to push into the cabin and don't need to heat a battery pack.

yeah, on ICE cabin heating vs BEV cabin heating, ICE gains a bit of advantage.

meanwhile, BEVs have regenerative braking, and ICE don’t.

there are obviously small metals at margins, that cut various ways, and result in some net differences - at these margins.


but if we’re talking in first principles, the obvious core point being discussed is this notion that somehow BEVs magically lose materially more range (as % of total range) than does an ICE truck.

and that is patently false.

and the WORST ICE offender in losing range while towing, will like lose more range (as a % of total range) than will the BEST BEV in this respect.

ICE truck forums have these identical discussions ongoing, as ad nausium as between various ICE trucks and configurations. the nature of those discussions is no different in magnitude than are being had here

 

[cvalue13]

Going to disagree with you on that, ICE truck will not lose that large of a % of total range in those conditions.

Not going to copy/paste 20 examples but if you look around you will see that ICE trucks will loose efficiency and range when towing, but will not loose 70%+ of their EPA range.

Cybertruck currently is able to get about 28% of it's EPA range when towing a variety of different trailers.

please go ahead and do that footwork, so I don’t have to for you

I’ll go ahead and get that ball rolling for you with just the first example from Google, below.

The truck being discussed has EPA 18/25/21 mpg city/highway/combined. And bare in mind, he doesn’t provide temps, but based on experience I can guarantee you this was normal temps (loosing >1/2 EPA hwy range) and not 37°



“
Hi all, back after a couple years without a RV......I jumped back in with a Passport Ultra Lite 153ML, GVWR of 4500lbs.

I just returned from picking up the trailer and pulled it with my 2017 F150 3.5 Ecoboost with 3.55 gears.

I was astonished to pull such a lightweight, aerodynamic trailer and the best MPG I got was 10.2 MPG. I went as low as 8.5 MPG.

I could have done better than that with my F250 with the 6.2 V8.

I am surprised how dreadful the towing MPG is with truck considering the overall weight of the truck/trailer combo is a couple thousand pounds lighter than I usually travel.

Unloaded this truck is great, but if you are on the fence about a F150 and a F250, go with the F250 gasser all the way UNLESS you drive a lot of unloaded miles.

The truck had plenty of power, no issue there, but I simply cannot imagine pulling 7K-10K lbs with this truck, the MPG's must be around 5.

My current range is about 250 miles pulling this Ultralight, given the fuel tank size. So, essentially, adding an ultralight trailer dropped my MPG nearly in half. Not what I expected.

Gman
2017 F150 CC/5.5' 4x4 3.5 Ecoboost/3.55
2018 Passport Ultra-Lite 153ML”

 

[mark555055c]

Guys, my 2019 Silverado lost 45% range last week when towing my 3500lb horse trailer in the cold... If i extrapolate this, it means when I tow, i have to stop to fill with gas every 228 miles where I will spend ~$100, and get stinky gas on my hands.

As of today, i have determined the 2019 Silverado trail boss is a complete and utter failure.... GM really dropped the ball with this one. Mary Barra is a fraud.

 

[PerfectFlaw]

TLDR:

EV's are not good for towing, and you should not replace a tow vehicle with an EV.

 

[BannedByTMC]

meanwhile, BEVs have regenerative braking, and ICE don’t.

True but unless there are long downhill stretches you don't spend much time on your brakes when on the highway.

 

[cvalue13]

True but unless there are long downhill stretches you don't spend much time on your brakes when on the highway.

just listing one of several ups-and-downs of differences in efficiency between them

there are many

but more to the point of the concept we’re discussing: these differences in ups-and-downs are also present between ICE trucks. There are in/efficiencies between diesel and gas, midsized and fullsized, turbo, naturally aspirated, v6 vs v8, etc., etc.


The point being, if people are wanting to frame the discussion as though there are some magical and material differences between BEV trucks (as a category) and ICE trucks (as a category), and that these differences are so significant as to mean one must understand this “magic” of BEV behavior, they must conveniently ignore that all these minor variations also have their analogous differences as between ICE vehicles.

Put differenrly by example: a gas turbo performs as differently from a turbo diesel as does a Cybertruck from a gas turbo, etc., etc. - and “people who understand ICE trucks and towing” are not only capable of understanding these differences, there are entire forums just like this one where it’s all people talk about, for decades on end.

Tow a trailer at 70mph in 37° weather, and nobody familiar with ICE truck towing will be surprised to learn that a given truck is going to have it’s range (as a % basis) slaughtered

Afterall, that is exactly why ICE trucks now come with massive, 32+ gallon fuel tanks.

 

[cvalue13]

EV's are not AS good at towing

mile-for-mile and pound-for-pound,, EV’s are wildly better at towing. Wildly.

That sort of completely bonkers comment/framing is exactly why it is important and helpful to frame this as a “size of fuel tank” issue, not some “magical” BEV deficiency.

who was it again taking issue with that framing a few days back?

here’s your prime example

 

[Gurule92]

a) Part way into the trip data (44 miles)
b) At supercharger arrival. (90 miles) [note: they lowered speed to 60 and then 55 as they didn't think they were going to make it ... arrived at 2%] -- Hilarious that they could have swapped places if the ran out of juice and had the e-Hummer pull the Cybertruck on the trailer.

UPDATE: ignore Trip A comments in 1st graphic since it includes some towing that was in Trip B.

thanks for saving me the time of writing this. Its actually really good considering its averaging

 

[Gigahorse]

They can, just not long distances. It should work perfectly fine for all my needs because I don't do long distance towing.

I gotcha, I just don't consider more than 80 miles round trip long distance, but short distances under 40 miles or so should be ok.

 

[Gurule92]

People are forgetting that this is like worst case scenario. If the truck went just shy of 100 miles (there was still some juice in there) with a MAXED out load, in freezing temps on all terrain tires. I am actually pretty excited about how far a normal load could go in the summer

 

[CyberGus]

a real bummer for those of us having planned on doing some towing with the cybertruck.

You're using the term "planned" quite loosely

 

[Gigahorse]

People are forgetting that this is like worst case scenario. If the truck went just shy of 100 miles (there was still some juice in there) with a MAXED out load, in freezing temps on all terrain tires. I am actually pretty excited about how far a normal load could go in the summer

This is a bad towing situation, but the other tests between 4,000 and 6,000 lbs in 40-70 degree weather have all been around 100 miles or less
Was hoping this bad winter test would net 110 and the warmer lighter tests would be in the 150+ range

 

[Crissa]

TLDR
Towing a heavy load with the CT you are going to get about 70-90 miles in cool weather, driving at lower speeds. Less range than the Rivian and Ford tests

It's not the weight, it's the hummer lifted up high in the air.

Why are all these bad tests on such inefficient trailers?

-Crissa

 

[Longranger]

Is there a reason we are still beating this dead horse? All of the available electric pickups are suboptimal for long distance towing Due to range. The semi proves that an EV can do it well but that is a completely different animal and use scenario. The range issues could be marginally addressed by installing a huge expensive battery, improving the charge curve and installing many pull through chargers. For now ICE pickups make more sense. Local towing is a completely different story.

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