Towing and Laser Tag Weekend

[loki]

Towed my RV for the first time this weekend. Between all the camping gear, full water tank for boondocking, laser tag equipment, food for hundreds, etc I'm guessing I had around a 1800 lb payload including tongue weight and towing close to 7000 lbs.

I was disappointed to see my rear Furrion camera would not power on by the RV plug which typically would by the Ford. I didn't diagnose this too much though. Maybe by chance it went bad during the offseason?

For the freeway portion to the site, it was clear halfway through but stop and go for the remaining. At the base of the mountain before the steep/windy climb towards Mount Hamilton I ended up with 690 Wh/mi for 11 miles and 18 minute duration. After getting to the top, it ended with 1,148 Wh/mi for 25 miles and 50 minute duration. The Cybertruck had absolutely no issues pulling it and felt completely solid. It was awesome to see after hooking up the air compressor kick in and auto level itself out after hitching. The vehicle told me starting from home at 100% I would arrive with 70% but actually ended up at 75% which was a nice surprise.

I didn't bother to plug the RV into the Cybertruck given it's mostly self sufficient between the solar and lithium batteries (actually, I did plug in for a few minutes to use the microwave once). I was dismayed to see the Cybertruck had gone from 75% to 65% the next morning. Maybe I need to turn Sentry mode off? Was it looking for a cell signal that didn't exist? I was surprised it lost that much. It also another 10% the second night.

The next day I was helping run a laser tag event for the group. The power plugs came in handy although I could have just as easily used the plugs from the RV. We used pumps to inflate/deflate all the barriers, keep the TV scoreboard running, power the router, and other miscellaneous charging. The side Tesla molle panels came in handy for strapping the game WiFi router to.

Given my friend had a Lightning I asked him to come with a full charge so I could recharge from him since this was my first time towing with the Cybertruck and wanted to be extra cautious. I was able to pull at 6 kW from his truck. You can also see the running ProtectaClear from this photo but there's already a whole thread on that...

On the way back home, coming down the mountain I actually ended up with a negative energy rate, -123 Wh/mil for 9 miles and 23 minutes. For the entire trip back I averaged 606 Wh/mi for 24 miles and 42 minutes.

Overall, amazing trip and truck. The range anxiety is real especially going into the wilderness with no signal. If the battery extender were user swappable to not have to take up bed space 95% of the time I wouldn't need it, that would make such an ideal setup.

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[CyberGus]

Elon would be proud

 

[rizvend]

Elon would be proud

That energy usage might as well be barreling down the mountain to gain back that energy. Great job on efficiency! ?

 

[Spacenoddle]

Towed my RV for the first time this weekend. Between all the camping gear, full water tank for boondocking, laser tag equipment, food for hundreds, etc I'm guessing I had around a 1800 lb payload including tongue weight and towing close to 7000 lbs.

I was disappointed to see my rear Furrion camera would not power on by the RV plug which typically would by the Ford. I didn't diagnose this too much though. Maybe by chance it went bad during the offseason?

For the freeway portion to the site, it was clear halfway through but stop and go for the remaining. At the base of the mountain before the steep/windy climb towards Mount Hamilton I ended up with 690 Wh/mi for 11 miles and 18 minute duration. After getting to the top, it ended with 1,148 Wh/mi for 25 miles and 50 minute duration. The Cybertruck had absolutely no issues pulling it and felt completely solid. It was awesome to see after hooking up the air compressor kick in and auto level itself out after hitching. The vehicle told me starting from home at 100% I would arrive with 70% but actually ended up at 75% which was a nice surprise.

I didn't bother to plug the RV into the Cybertruck given it's mostly self sufficient between the solar and lithium batteries (actually, I did plug in for a few minutes to use the microwave once). I was dismayed to see the Cybertruck had gone from 75% to 65% the next morning. Maybe I need to turn Sentry mode off? Was it looking for a cell signal that didn't exist? I was surprised it lost that much. It also another 10% the second night.

The next day I was helping run a laser tag event for the group. The power plugs came in handy although I could have just as easily used the plugs from the RV. We used pumps to inflate/deflate all the barriers, keep the TV scoreboard running, power the router, and other miscellaneous charging. The side Tesla molle panels came in handy for strapping the game WiFi router to.

Given my friend had a Lightning I asked him to come with a full charge so I could recharge from him since this was my first time towing with the Cybertruck and wanted to be extra cautious. I was able to pull at 6 kW from his truck. You can also see the running ProtectaClear from this photo but there's already a whole thread on that...

On the way back home, coming down the mountain I actually ended up with a negative energy rate, -123 Wh/mil for 9 miles and 23 minutes. For the entire trip back I averaged 606 Wh/mi for 24 miles and 42 minutes.

Overall, amazing trip and truck. The range anxiety is real especially going into the wilderness with no signal. If the battery extender were user swappable to not have to take up bed space 95% of the time I wouldn't need it, that would make such an ideal setup.

The running protective clear indeed looks horrible.

 

[Dmayo305]

I too towed over the holiday weekend... I'll try to knock out a write-up later, but here's what my display looked like for probably 3 intense up-hill miles, just before Baker, CA.

 

[Cybertruck 1974]

My trip, started at 100% charge showing 318 miles available towing 3600lb airstream 120 miles. averaged 800w/m mostly flat except last 20 miles was a uphill 4k ft elevation change used 1700w/m. My truck used all of the charge except 50 miles. It was an anxiety hell trip to property. It really sucks towing. On way back with downhill regen started at 88% having 269 miles available used all but 70 miles. So so disappointed. But we all knew this.

 

[Oakland_baby]

The towing performance reported is the reason I am not pulling the trigger on my cybertruck right now. My use case is replacement of a V8 which gets 9 mpg towing our 6-7k pound trailer with a 25 gallon tank (about 200 miles towing). The Chevy EV truck (approx 200 miles towing) or 3.0 L diesel (about 300 miles towing) are my best options right now. (The diesel is about the cost that the cybertruck was supposed to be originally.)

I am holding on to my old V8 for now and watching closely to see if the Cybertruck, Ford, Rivian, or Ram can level up to the Chevy.

FYi - I was not expecting to hear about my order for another year. The price increase and small battery are resulting in a quick burn through the order backlog.
.

 

[Cybertruck 1974]

The towing performance reported is the reason I am not pulling the trigger on my cybertruck right now. My use case is replacement of a V8 which gets 9 mpg towing our 6-7k pound trailer with a 25 gallon tank (about 200 miles towing). The Chevy EV truck (approx 200 miles towing) or 3.0 L diesel (about 300 miles towing) are my best options right now. (The diesel is about the cost that the cybertruck was supposed to be originally.)

I am holding on to my old V8 for now and watching closely to see if the Cybertruck, Ford, Rivian, or Ram can level up to the Chevy.

FYi - I was not expecting to hear about my order for another year. The price increase and small battery are resulting in a quick burn through the order backlog.
.

Yep, wish it had a bigger or better battery for towing. The big bulky block they want us to buy for the huge 16k to add to the mileage is not going to be an option for me. Just need to stop every 150 miles while towing at this point.

 

[Dmayo305]

Yep, wish it had a bigger or better battery for towing. The big bulky block they want us to buy for the huge 16k to add to the mileage is not going to be an option for me. Just need to stop every 150 miles while towing at this point.

Or maybe every 100 miles or less.

 

[Dmayo305]

Okay, here's my story. For the rig, we've got a 2018 Heritage Glenn 37 1/2 foot travel trailer with 3 slide-outs. She's labeled for just shy of 9k dry, GVWR of 10.7k. I have an equalizer 4-point anti-sway weight distribution hitch. I failed to get an actual total weight on this trip, which was a bit of a foul. All that to say, she's thicc. We towed from Las Vegas to Coronado over the holiday weekend. Prior to this, my only towing with this truck had been taking the rig from the dealership to our house, and to/from our house to her resting spot on the other side of town (all <30 miles). Those short trips always seemed to have very accurate estimates on the range display.

On the way from our home to Baker, we started with an estimate of 318 miles (which is strange that it does this, why doesn't it give the realistic mileage based on the estimate it shows in the energy display?!?). Using the energy display and after the auto-supercharging-stop-gonkulation, it showed us getting to Baker Superchargers(113 miles door-to-plug) with something like 50 miles of range remaining. Once we started hauling, it eventually started decreasing to something along the lines of 30 miles remaining. I wasn't really too stressed. We passed the Primm, NV superchargers still showing roughly 30 miles of expected range remaining at Baker. I decided 30 miles of range was plenty of buffer and kept driving past the Primm station (no Ragrets!).

As evidenced by my above photo, roughly 20 miles outside of Baker, the range display took a turn for the worst. As far as I can tell, the temperature, winds, and my speed did not change appreciably. However, the energy display started rapidly changing to show me operating below zero miles but still arriving at the supercharger with 24+ miles (there's a pretty good downhill the last 6-9 miles to Baker). At the actual arrival time, the energy display magically changed to show 2 miles of range remaining. I decided to drive around to the back of the supercharging area and saw that the pull-through island chargers, which would probably keep me from blocking up too many additional spots, were taped off with caution tape (good thing Almighty Elon just fired the whole team /s). I then quickly instead pulled up to an area that would at least prevent me from blocking up the entire road, with now 1 mile of charge remaining. Naturally, those plugs didn't have tape, but also didn't work. A nice guy in a Model 3 from Washington state walked over and told me he just tried those plugs and they didn't work, but that he would go stand in the outermost bay for me to pull up to. I moved again, this time desperate for a plug, and ended up blocking most of the road behind the back row of superchargers, including almost blocking in the gentlemen in the Model 3. In my stress and haste, I failed to take a photo of this boondoggle. However, about 100 people did, so maybe there's one floating around on social media.

The bottom line is that this truck is technically capable of towing 11k, but it is not feasible for any appreciable distance. The trip that took less than 6 hours without a trailer took 10.5 with one.

 

[Cybertruck 1974]

Or maybe every 100 miles or less.

Oh yes, you towing 11k it would be that bad. Yet the truck is a little 1/2 ton so I wouldn't tow that much ever with it. Just doesn't have the battery for it.

 

[Woodrick]

Or maybe every 100 miles or less.

Especially when towing, your trip speed will dramatically decrease if you charge more often and to a lower battery level.
0-50% takes about 15 minutes
50-80% takes another 30 minutes
80-100% takes another hour.

When on the road I rarely charge to over 70%, unless I'm eating.

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