Practical

Can an electric car tow a caravan?

Short answer

Some can, but towing roughly halves range, the extra mass and, above all, the caravan's drag cost a lot of energy.

Full answer

Towing is the hardest thing you can ask of an EV's range. A caravan adds mass, but the bigger penalty is aerodynamic drag: a big box behind the car dramatically raises the drag the motor must overcome, and drag dominates at road speed.

As a rule of thumb, expect towing to cut range by something like a half, and to slow rapid charging stops into your journey planning. Only tow-rated cars should do it at all.

Our journey twin lets you add the effect of extra load, and the car pages flag which models are tow-rated. If you tow regularly, the honest advice is to plan around the reduced range rather than hope, see methodology for how drag is modelled.

Every figure in this answer is computed by the physics model. See how it works