Long distance EV towing video

[Crazychicken563]

I'm curious to get this community's feedback on this video

The truck in the video is a Silverado EV with a range of 500 miles and a charge speed of 350kw

A few things I observed:
1. The cost of DCFC was quite high. It looked like they were picking specific stations for their price
2. In the majority of cases in order to charge they had to block many stalls or unhitch the trailer. It also seemed like at every charging stop there was never a single other vehicle charging (except in a single stop where there was one other car). This somewhat leads me to believe that they were moreso lucky that the trailer could stay on rather than the design of the charging stations being trailer-accessible. I did notice a single pull-through charging station which was very cool.
3. The position of the charge port in the rear of the truck seemed awful for lining it up with pretty much every charger they used. Seems like having the port on the front would have been vastly better in every situation.
4. Towing through the mountains looked very effortless, to the point where the nav was actually underestimating their range with a trailer.
5. A surprising number of chargers seemed to charge below the expected charge speed. Later on there was also an issue with their truck, but even before then they were hopping charger stalls. This is the same thing I've experienced with public charging as well, and doing so with a trailer sounds extra annoying (except again these guys had zero other people sharing the entire charging station with them)

Overall I was impressed by the performance and range of the truck in this video, especially considering it was filmed in the winter. This video did however confirm that charging with a trailer is not really that accessible unless you remove the trailer. I don't think it's wise to assume an empty charging station at every single stop.
It also really made clear that a charging port in the front of the car is superior to having it in the rear, at least for this usecase.

I'm curious what you all think about this video. Is it representative of anyone else's experiences?

 

[Mousehunter]

Last week I did a small road trip before the storm hit S. Texas. Saw my first drive through charging station for trailers - it was one of a bank of Rivian chargers (also the first Rivian chargers I have ever noticed). There were no cars charging - but that is not uncommon.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

DCFC costs have been rising with the exploding costs of electricity around the country. In this video, they seemed to be trying to find the most expensive chargers.
The farthest I’ve towed a trailer with my Lightning is about 1200 miles round-trip. Shorter distances many times.
I’ve never unhooked the trailer at a DCFC.
I have no problem unhooking a trailer. It takes almost no time to do so even with my WDH (not sure why they weren’t towing with a WDH). The DCFC stations are usually not so busy that I can’t just park wonky for 30 minutes.
I have the charge port on the front of my Lightning. If the Scout keeps the charge port on the back, I won’t consider it a tow-capable BEV, even though I don’t care about disconnecting. A rear driver port placement just makes everything more difficult. Front passenger side is better in every way, including for charging on residential streets.
I live at 7,000 feet; towing with the Lightning up or down the mountain is infinitely superior to towing with any other vehicle I’ve ever towed with. There’s simply no comparison.
I noticed that they regularly charged above 80% when they didn't need to. That's a them issue, it’s not an issue with BEVs.
I don’t find long-distance towing to be a problem, but I only do it once a year or so.

 

[R1TVT]

I'm curious what you all think about this video. Is it representative of anyone else's experiences?

No.

But if long-distance towing in the winter (or any time really) were one of my primary use cases, I would buy a 2500HD (again).

Glad that is not the case, though.

 

[Jrgunn5150]

Almost no one buying any truck is ever towing anything 2000 miles. Most people don't even own a trailer. 30% of truck owners will never put a hitch in.

The small percentage who do, don't do it very often. 8% of truck owners tow weekly.

Those who do it very often, should choose an ICE vehicle.

No one is marketing these light duty trucks to use cases of only towing 2000 miles in the winter.

But for people who do tow, I bet it is just a delightful experience with all that torque.

 

[Mousehunter]

I don't keep track of exactly how often I tow. But plenty of times it is every week - right now I am towing feed over 6 times a week (but honestly that is an exception rather than rule). So I kind of am probably part of that small percentage - but I also have no plans on getting rid of my 3/4 ton diesel. Feed runs, short light trailer runs - the Traveler will not have a problem. Long trips, heavy trailer runs, RV, when I am using a gooseneck - back to the F250.

 

[Logan]

Agreed. Regular long distance towing is pretty uncommon. And the people that do it regularly, know what they need. And its not often a normal light duty truck. So its interesting to see how it went, but I'd also guess that "most" people wouldn't do that often, if ever.

I used to tow frequently. I worked as a driver (and manual labor grunt) for a commercial landscaping company. It was my brother in laws company, and he borrowed my truck to start out. I helped him weld up the trailer, and was his only employee for ages. I drove a ~20ft landscaping trailer every day for a few years.

My family has some cabins in Northern AZ, and we do family reunions up there all the time. With so much gear needing to go up and back, we completely pack the bed of a pickup truck, and had a little 4x8 trailer that we originally used for dirt bikes that we'd fill to the gills as well. Sometimes I'd drive it, sometimes my father.

But all of that was local-ish driving. The landscaping job was within a ~50 mile radius, and the trips to the cabin are ~200 miles 1 way.

I do have family that tows huge distances constantly (Drag raced at the national level for decades). But most of that is using freightliner/semi truck style motorhomes. They do have a 1 ton truck they use for shorter distance stuff (like moving their giant trailers locally), but the motorhomes are used for the races.

I haven't towed in years at the moment. And actually don't have anything that I would really trust to tow much of anything at the moment. My Hyundai Tucson has like a 1500lb tow rating. So while I put on a hitch (bike rack use), I didn't even put on a wiring connection, because I have no intention of ever towing with it.

Both of my other vehicles technically have 5000lb tow capacities. But one is a 29yr old Jeep that I'm not sure I'd trust for that atm, and the other is a brand new Ioniq 9 (also without a hitch).

 

[Jrgunn5150]

That was the whole deal with the scam that was Lordstown.

Sell them to fleets.

The fear mongers' who absolutely know they work for a living because they're men and men work and men drive trucks AND THEY'RE MEN...

Tradespeople, plumbers, electricians, cable guys... They move in like a 50-754 mile radius of base. Try to get a plumber from another city to come visit you, they don't leave their zip codes lol. Plug it in at night, drive it all day, repeat.

Only on the internet does everyone tow everything everywhere all the time.

In real life, people won't drive an hour for something.

 

[Mousehunter]

Location, Location, Location...

I live in rural Texas. We drive a bit more than some other people I guess. HEB is a 1hr round trip of driving. Did a 2hr trip to day to take my son to the dentist. My old commute to work was 3hrs a day.

 

[6-ScoutFamily]

Location, Location, Location...

I live in rural Texas. We drive a bit more than some other people I guess. HEB is a 1hr round trip of driving. Did a 2hr trip to day to take my son to the dentist. My old commute to work was 3hrs a day.

Yes! This is something the pure EV YouTubers seem to have very little concept of when speaking about “adequate” charging infrastructure. They don’t, or haven’t, lived in the western US (not the coast). Look at any EV charging map. There are VAST areas outside of easy charging access—and if you tow stuff, trouble may well come your way.

 

[Jrgunn5150]

The funny thing about sparsely populated areas of the country..

Most people don't live in them.

That's why they're sparsely populated.

 

[dreamweaver]

The funny thing about sparsely populated areas of the country..

Most people don't live in them.

That's why they're sparsely populated.

A wise man once said.

 

[Logan]

The funny thing about sparsely populated areas of the country..

Most people don't live in them.

That's why they're sparsely populated.

Lol, this is great.

Like when the old joke where the newspaper article reports "Breaking news, 50% of Children's test scores are BELOW AVERAGE".

 

[BartMan Terra Total EV]

DCFC costs have been rising with the exploding costs of electricity around the country. In this video, they seemed to be trying to find the most expensive chargers.
The farthest I’ve towed a trailer with my Lightning is about 1200 miles round-trip. Shorter distances many times.
I’ve never unhooked the trailer at a DCFC.
I have no problem unhooking a trailer. It takes almost no time to do so even with my WDH (not sure why they weren’t towing with a WDH). The DCFC stations are usually not so busy that I can’t just park wonky for 30 minutes.
I have the charge port on the front of my Lightning. If the Scout keeps the charge port on the back, I won’t consider it a tow-capable BEV, even though I don’t care about disconnecting. A rear driver port placement just makes everything more difficult. Front passenger side is better in every way, including for charging on residential streets.
I live at 7,000 feet; towing with the Lightning up or down the mountain is infinitely superior to towing with any other vehicle I’ve ever towed with. There’s simply no comparison.
I noticed that they regularly charged above 80% when they didn't need to. That's a them issue, it’s not an issue with BEVs.
I don’t find long-distance towing to be a problem, but I only do it once a year or so.

Space have you heard of anyone from Scout hinting they may move charging port to front passenger ? Huge fail if they don't

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

The funny thing about sparsely populated areas of the country..

Most people don't live in them.

That's why they're sparsely populated.

The other problem is that the maps for DCFCs just show points at a particular scale. That’s ALWAYS misleading. Instead of points on a map, the charger maps should display some standardized range “covered” by the charger. In my case, I’m using 50 miles (80 km) because if you have 100 miles remaining range, you know you can get back to where you started if the charger at the 50 mile distance doesn’t work for you.

Here’s a comparison between population density and 50 mile driving distance to DCFC chargers.

First map: DCFC chargers and their 50 mile driving distance. Even on this map, it looks like some places have no chargers. The 100 mile map fills that in, but I already set the standard I’m using and we’ll stick with 50 miles. This map is from November 2025; it’s already a couple hundred DCFC stations out-of-date. My servers are currently offline for maintenance and won’t be back up until some time late spring, so I can’t recreate these with the newest data. This is good enough for the point.

Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota, Idaho and Oregon, Utah, Arizona look bad. (I’ve driven through AZ, Utah, Colorado, etc., and they’re actually just fine).

If you take a population density map where you leave the lowest population density (<1 person per 1 km^2) transparent, you get the following:

Then if you burn in an overlay of that population density map onto the charger 50 mile driving distance map… Dark blues are high population density, very lightes blues are 50 mile driving distance. I don’t have population numbers for the Canadian provinces, so you only see the 50 mile driving distances in Canada.

The point is that most of the low density of charging locations are in mountainous, desert, or other places where very few people live and there are very few services of any kind.

Are there places in those empty spots on the map that I like to visit? I already have.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Space have you heard of anyone from Scout hinting they may move charging port to front passenger ? Huge fail if they don't

I do not believe they will. There was some hope for a short time when it became clear the fuel tank filler would be moved to the rear of the vehicle, but I believe the hope was dashed by a post on this forum.

We won’t be able to replace the Lightning with the Terra (whenever that time comes) unless the charge port is on the front of the vehicle.

 

[dreamweaver]

The other problem is that the maps for DCFCs just show points at a particular scale. That’s ALWAYS misleading. Instead of points on a map, the charger maps should display some standardized range “covered” by the charger. In my case, I’m using 50 miles (80 km) because if you have 100 miles remaining range, you know you can get back to where you started if the charger at the 50 mile distance doesn’t work for you.

Here’s a comparison between population density and 50 mile driving distance to DCFC chargers.

First map: DCFC chargers and their 50 mile driving distance. Even on this map, it looks like some places have no chargers. The 100 mile map fills that in, but I already set the standard I’m using and we’ll stick with 50 miles. This map is from November 2025; it’s already a couple hundred DCFC stations out-of-date. My servers are currently offline for maintenance and won’t be back up until some time late spring, so I can’t recreate these with the newest data. This is good enough for the point.

View attachment 13257
Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota, Idaho and Oregon, Utah, Arizona look bad. (I’ve driven through AZ, Utah, Colorado, etc., and they’re actually just fine).

If you take a population density map where you leave the lowest population density (<1 person per 1 km^2) transparent, you get the following:

View attachment 13259

Then if you burn in an overlay of that population density map onto the charger 50 mile driving distance map… Dark blues are high population density, very lightes blues are 50 mile driving distance. I don’t have population numbers for the Canadian provinces, so you only see the 50 mile driving distances in Canada.

View attachment 13258


The point is that most of the low density of charging locations are in mountainous, desert, or other places where very few people live and there are very few services of any kind.

Are there places in those empty spots on the map that I like to visit? I already have.

View attachment 13260

Thank you for putting it in perspective. Well done as always.