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Why is there no small trailer that you can hitch on the highway portion of you drive and that gives you another few 100 miles of range. If you drive that far yo

Why is there no small trailer that you can hitch on the highway portion of you drive and that gives you another few 100 miles of range. If you drive that far you will almost certainly drive in the highway and given it is very dense it should not have a huge air resistance. I am sure there are reasons but it would seem a very practical solution. You could then drop it off at the last highway depot and continue with a mostly full battery.

chipsa 4y ago
There's no standard for power between trailer and vehicle. You're probably looking at a 400V DC connector, which is going to need to be fairly tough, because you don't want to electrocute someone. You can't just borrow the existing DC charging connector, because most of them are on the side of the vehicle, and are also set to not allow the car to move if connected. You'd probably need a DC/DC converter to bring the trailer voltage to match the vehicle voltage, or you get the trailer ending up charging the vehicle (and that'd be bad if you don't have something to regulate the current flow). Or you'd need to have another entire drive inverter set to run the motors off the trailer power, and have no HV connection. And lastly, it's almost certainly better in the long run to just improve the charging infrastructure so there's a stop when you need it. That said, your small trailer might be handy for things like: you're actually towing something, and being able to have the trailer supply power to offset the air resistance, would be handy.
- vibrio 4y ago
  How much would such a trailer cost, ball park? I’ve assumed that the batteries are a big part of the cost of ev’s.
  - clouddrover 4y ago
    $55,000 for this yet to be released trailer: https://coloradoteardrops.com/ev/ https://coloradoteardrops.com/ev/ It's a 75 kWh battery for charging your EV at 50 kW in the field.

chipsa 4y ago

There's no standard for power between trailer and vehicle. You're probably looking at a 400V DC connector, which is going to need to be fairly tough, because you don't want to electrocute someone. You can't just borrow the existing DC charging connector, because most of them are on the side of the vehicle, and are also set to not allow the car to move if connected. You'd probably need a DC/DC converter to bring the trailer voltage to match the vehicle voltage, or you get the trailer ending up charging the vehicle (and that'd be bad if you don't have something to regulate the current flow). Or you'd need to have another entire drive inverter set to run the motors off the trailer power, and have no HV connection. And lastly, it's almost certainly better in the long run to just improve the charging infrastructure so there's a stop when you need it. That said, your small trailer might be handy for things like: you're actually towing something, and being able to have the trailer supply power to offset the air resistance, would be handy.

vibrio 4y ago
How much would such a trailer cost, ball park? I’ve assumed that the batteries are a big part of the cost of ev’s.
- clouddrover 4y ago
  $55,000 for this yet to be released trailer: https://coloradoteardrops.com/ev/ https://coloradoteardrops.com/ev/ It's a 75 kWh battery for charging your EV at 50 kW in the field.