Tesla Cybertruck towing range vs. gas & diesel trucks | dual motor

[ModelAZ]

"Tesla’s website still lists a max towing capability of over 14K lbs. for the Cybertruck, but beyond towing power, will the Cybertruck have enough range to make towing practical? How will it compare to a gas or diesel truck?"

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[Crissa]

Let me answer these questions:

It will do poorly compared to diesel, fine compared to gas, and for most people's towing needs, stopping every hundred and some miles is fine (and safer).

But in this ridiculous 80mph situation they'll posit forgetting the range losses in their diesel...

-Crissa

 

[egandalf]

The hard part with towing isn’t necessarily about the range, but about the availability of charging, ease of charging access (I.e. pull-through), and duration of charging.

Opinion coming off of a 320-mile towing road trip with our small camper this past weekend with our R1T.

I fully expect Tesla to shine in points 1 & 3. They might be slightly worse on #2 for now.

 

[WildhavenMI]

The hard part with towing isn’t necessarily about the range, but about the availability of charging, ease of charging access (I.e. pull-through), and duration of charging.

Opinion coming off of a 320-mile towing road trip with our small camper this past weekend with our R1T.

I fully expect Tesla to shine in points 1 & 3. They might be slightly worse on #2 for now.

Agree heartily on the availability of charing. There are places in my home state I can't really visit due to distance from a supercharger, even without towing.

 

[egandalf]

Agree heartily on the availability of charing. There are places in my home state I can't really visit due to distance from a supercharger, even without towing.

100%. I live in rural Kentucky and driving directly south is impossible (if I want to also come home). I’d have to drive 6 hours to get to a town 3 hours away.

 

[Sasmania]

This will completely depend on where and when you are traveling.

California has LOTS of chargers, making it fairly easy with plenty of V3 chargers. Other states are may not be so lucky.

The "when" matters because if the SCs are fairly empty, it's easy to take up 3-4 stalls without causing any issues with other drivers if there isn't a pull thru... I wouldn't want to try it during a busy holiday weekend.

I towed freight with my Y (meaning I had a time limit to get the load to the destination) and it was no problem thru CA. But I just couldn't do other places. The CT will be much better of course but the same issues still apply.

 

[Crissa]

Agree heartily on the availability of charing. There are places in my home state I can't really visit due to distance from a supercharger, even without towing.

Nope. Not anymore.

The network is exploding. (Orange is DC Fast, Green is destination. Not all destination is shown.)

-Crissa

 

[WildhavenMI]

Nope. Not anymore.



The network is exploding. (Orange is DC Fast, Green is destination. Not all destination is shown.)

-Crissa

Oh its getting better for sure, but its not there yet. I just had to get the CCS charging update to my Model X so I could visit relatives in the UP for a wedding, and had to sit for nearly 2 hours at a 50kw CCS charger with my kids. Doable, but...not enjoyable. There's really only 3 active superchargers in the UP (Escanaba, Marquette, the Soo), and they're far apart for being in northern, indirect regions. 176 miles between the Mackinaw and Marquette superchargers right now, with no bail out options in between. And heaven forbid you need to go further northwest of Marquette, because you're stuck with L2 and 50kw CCS.

Until a few months ago, Michigan's thumb had no supercharger either until they opened in Bad Axe.

 

[WildhavenMI]

Nope. Not anymore.

-Crissa

Also, lets be a tad more realistic and not include anything less than 150kw on that map, because that's not "reasonable" for a general market. Take a look at northern Michigan and say again with the same confidence that you think this is good enough.

 

[fritter63]

(Orange is DC Fast,.....)

-Crissa

Oh, those used to show up black for me!.....

 

[Crissa]

Until a few months ago, Michigan's thumb had no supercharger either until they opened in Bad Axe.

You do know you can charge before you get there, and still have enough range to travel across it?

-Crissa

 

[Crissa]

Also, lets be a tad more realistic and not include anything less than 150kw on that map, because that's not "reasonable" for a general market. Take a look at northern Michigan and say again with the same confidence that you think this is good enough.

...And I still have confidence.

You can drive across it just fine.

Yeah, the stations are 150 miles apart. Now, a Bolt might have trouble. But there's no reason a Tesla needs to stop at a 50kW. But why would you drive through here rather than drive to here? Just charge at your destination.

-Crissa

 

[WildhavenMI]

You do know you can charge before you get there, and still have enough range to travel across it?

-Crissa

I don't know why we're fighting because I generally like your posts, but -- I live here, in this state, and camp 1x/month or more for 9 months of the year. I've put 90k miles on EVs since 2018 driving around Michigan, and I am very first-hand intimately familiar with the charging situation here.

This comment makes you come off as an ass who doesn't actually understand the details of the situation you dismiss with a misleading Plugshare screenshot.

If you earnestly believe that northern Michigan has adequate fast charging to support regular travel in EVs, and are interested in understanding why it it might not be as easy as a glance at a screen cap looks - lets have the convo. But...if you just want to drop incorrect one-liners, I'm not going to waste the time.

 

[HaulingAss]

100%. I live in rural Kentucky and driving directly south is impossible (if I want to also come home). I’d have to drive 6 hours to get to a town 3 hours away.

Tesla locates Superchargers based upon need, as determinecd by the fleet data they collect. If you have charging "holes" in Kentucky, it's because it's still the early days and your fellow rural Kentuckians haven't exactly been leading the charge to EV's.

But charging hole issues in rural areas are dropping away as the Supercharger Network continues to expand at a record pace. As the price of EV's continues to drop, and Tesla releases their cheapest car ever, rural adoption will accelerate and you will see record growth of Superchargers in rural areas.

Because you have to pay a lot more cash for a vehicle to get a bigger battery with more range, it pays to not under-estimate how quickly fast chargers will be built over the next 1-3 years. You will likely find that what was a limitation is 2023, was no longer even significant in 2025.

 

[bwhntr78]

Destination chargers are great if they are located at your actual destination, and there are enough of them at that location to ensure that everyone that shows up for the night has a plug available. But having just returned from a road trip across the WI/UP border, I can confirm that the destination charger situation is not nearly as good as what the plugshare map shows at quick glance. Many of those chargers are not located at hotels where you are going to be spending the night, and I'm pretty sure you don't want to spend 10 hours charging at the local ford/chevy/polaris dealer. We had adequate charging for our MY, but did miss out on one stop I would have liked to make because instead of an hour out of our way, we would have had to add about 3 hours to the trip in order to get to a supercharger in Minoqua, drive up to the UP, and then back down to Minoqua again. Overall still a good road trip, but that was not trying to tow, and the temperatures were in the 50's.

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