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An electrical trailer might resolve the biggest drawback when towing with an electrical automobile: You may solely go half the gap on a cost whereas towing.
To compensate, EV buyers who plan to tow past metropolis limits have to go for the biggest doable battery pack. But which means you’re hauling round many a whole lot of kilos of additional batteries and environmental footprint the remainder of the 12 months—batteries you in all probability don’t want for the day by day commute or journeys with out the trailer.
So the German travel-trailer and motorhome maker Dethleffs has a possible game-changer—particularly when you think about the electrical trailers is perhaps rented when wanted and might interface with a variety of autos. It’s engineered and developed the E.Home Caravan prototype it initially introduced in thought type because the E.Home Coco in 2018, with assist from the trip-planning agency Erwin Hymer and the auto-industry provider ZF.
Dethleffs E.Home Caravan electrical tenting trailer prototype
To show the idea, Dethleffs final month lined a 240-mile route throughout the Alps that’s common amongst European RV house owners. Using an Audi E-Tron SUV (EPA vary score of 204 miles) it towed the large journey trailer the complete route with out charging.
The route, which began on the firm’s manufacturing facility in Isny im Allgäu, Germany, took them over Brenner Pass and ends on the northern shore of Lake Garda, Italy.
The system supplies acceleration equal to what the E-Tron would in any other case provide as a solo automobile, and the setup is calibrated to reinforce stability. It must also be identified that the tempo on the mountain route was leisurely, with the staff taking greater than six hours to cowl the 240 miles.
Dethleffs E.Home Caravan electrical tenting trailer prototype
After pushing towards a robust headwind for a part of the journey, the E-Tron and trailer reached the vacation spot with 82 kwh utilized by the E-Tron and 74 kwh utilized by the trailer. The E.Home Caravan prototype has two battery modules, every with about 40 kwh, with one in entrance of the axle and the opposite behind it. The trailer may present energy out for different tenting wants, or help photo voltaic cells on the roof. It will be charged at as much as 7.2 kw on AC, and it’s suitable with 50-kw DC fast-charging.
The batteries are contained inside an inside body, whereas an outer body homes the inverter, charging unit, and management unit. There’s a protecting honeycomb crash construction on the rear, and the corporate says that it’s accomplished numerous simulations for stability and reliability.
The batteries plus drive system add as much as about 1,320 kilos to the burden of the trailer, and though the provider didn’t present a complete, it’s effectively throughout the E-Tron’s rated 4,000 kilos. It plans to chop the burden to about 880 kilos within the forthcoming manufacturing model. To examine, the E-Tron SUV’s battery pack quantities to 1,573 kilos.
Dethleffs E.Home Caravan electrical tenting trailer prototype
Dethleffs E.Home Caravan electrical tenting trailer prototype
Dethleffs E.Home Caravan electrical tenting trailer prototype
The drive unit for the trailer, developed by ZF, has two offset electrical motors making 30 kw of steady energy (40 hp) every, or a max of 90 kw (121 hp) every. Each motor additionally makes a most 66 lb-ft of torque, however with the 16:1 discount ratio it quantities to 1,062 lb-ft on the wheels. When the automobile is slowing, the motors present light regenerative braking and feed vitality again into the battery pack. Disc brakes are hydraulically actuated and blended.
The most complicated piece of package within the setup may effectively be the energetic towing load characteristic for the Trailer Mobility Control unit, which provides solely sufficient thrust from the trailer to keep up a continuing towing load on the tow bar. It’s designed to be towed with a comparatively low quantity of energy from the tow automobile—including extra regen down hills to keep up that—and it detects and compensates for crosswinds or corners.
Dethleffs says that the E.Home Caravan is “a future-proof solution” and can be good for inner combustion fashions as effectively, as it might enable fashions with much less highly effective engines to tow a larger load.
Another profit is a smartphone app-based parking system that helps information the trailer exactly into its spot, extra simply than backing in with the tow automobile.
Dethleffs E.Home Caravan electrical tenting trailer prototype
Audi deserves props for highlighting the difficulty in an easy manner. In February 2020 it towed a 4,000-pound trailer containing a GM EV1—the primary fashionable electrical automotive—from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Austin, Texas, for an EV occasion. Over 504 miles in 35-degree climate, Audi averaged simply 1.3 miles per kilowatt hour. That calculated out, given the E-Tron’s former 83.6-kwh usable vary, to less than 110 miles per full charge—an almost 50% discount from the E-Tron’s anticipated EPA vary.
That was no anomaly. Over a 7,700-mile journey in 2019, pals of Green Car Reports noticed a spread lower of 45 to 60 p.c when pulling a 3,800-pound journey trailer with their Tesla Model X rated to tug 5,000 kilos—amounting to a real-world range of well under 200 miles and bringing some logistical challenges (together with Supercharger stalls that weren’t towing-friendly) that Tesla house owners wouldn’t in any other case should confront.
As Dethleffs outlines, the E-Home Caravan isn’t but authorized in Europe. But with the help of the German Federal Ministry of Transport and a analysis initiative from RV corporations, the testing course of is underway and a framework might be adopted within the close to future.
Dethleffs E.Home Caravan electrical tenting trailer prototype
In the U.S. there can be related challenges with certification, though Dethleffs hasn’t confirmed something about bringing it to this continent but. It isn’t the one firm to counsel such an thought, although: Airstream introduced in February that it’s pursuing electrical journey trailers; Lordstown Motors final 12 months introduced a partnership with Camping World that goals to supply an electrified journey trailer as quickly as 2022, with an electrical RV to come back later.
Soon, maybe, it’ll simply be a matter of renting an electrified trailer, connecting an interface, and getting a lift as you tow with an electrical truck—and a a lot lighter footprint.
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