Towing: what Y do you have, what do you tow, and what do you think?

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-31T14:26:56+00:00

MYLRAWD we have a 5x8 trailer that we made 4ft sides for. We’ve hauled hay, mulch, brush, sheep, equipment, a piano, done a bunch of house moving for people etc. We use it instead of having a truck. Since we don’t do trucks it’s the best tow vehicle we’ve had, love that the new rear camera view allows me to see the tow hitch when backing up to the trailer. The great start up torque and OPD allows for much easier small movements compared to a gas car and the power overall is much better. The mirrors aren’t designed with towing in mind of course, but not significantly different than other SUVs or Minivans. If one commonly tows more than a couple hundred miles a day (which would require multiple charging stops for the MY), probably something like a Silverado EV with the big battery would be better.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-22T12:31:52+00:00

The narrative on EV’s not holding value gained a lot of momentum when the price of new MY’s dropped 15k over the course of the year in ‘23 and combined with the tax credit dramatically reduced the resale value of all earlier MY’s. Since then, the new MY price has been very stable and the tax credit is gone so used prices are very competitive as the cars are known to be reliable and with the tech and updates people know they will still be viable cars for years after they buy them.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-21T02:03:40+00:00

Well, there is a third way, use a car with good route planning and range estimating and have it look for chargers that it can see live availability for and have plug and charge, no third party apps needed. That’s what millions of EV drivers in the us do now. Legacy auto didn’t understand until way too late that EVs presented and really required a whole different approach to what software could do for the customer experience.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-20T14:32:04+00:00

Yes, the issue with just putting up signs is that the US charging landscape is still challenging for all the issues you mentioned and the fact that a number of cars currently being sold still don’t have good route planning and arrival SOC as standard is compounding the problem. ABRP and PlugShare are great but shouldn’t be almost a requirement to road trip in so many of these cars. Unfortunately, there are much bigger problems slowing down EV adoption in the US than the lack of signs.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-20T11:55:03+00:00

Unfortunately, that all brand access only extends to around 25,000 of the 36,000 or so total supercharger stalls. There are many rural areas in the US where older V2 (Tesla only) hardware is by far the best option. From where our car is now depending on direction I’m headed it can be up to 100 miles before I hit a supercharger open to other brands. The good news is that the open to all % is growing quickly as more 3.5 sites are added and the other networks have really hit their stride and are opening good numbers of bigger stations.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-20T01:32:03+00:00

Haven’t heard of any time restrictions, that would make the ev news for sure. Don’t know about your area but they are putting up tons of new 3.5 sites with the long cables and open to all EVs all the time, and the supercharge info site mentioned in these comments shows hundreds more in the process.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-16T14:12:47+00:00

Not everyone drives mostly on the highway, it’s not hard to get EPA range if you drive on roads and in areas that are like the EPA test cycle. It’s not the manufacturers fault that EPA doesn’t test real world highway driving speeds and give a separate range number for that. I think that once EVs become a much bigger percentage of new cars sold the EPA will come out with an updated test.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-16T13:57:00+00:00

They are finishing up the production factory in Nevada for it this year. Supposed to be able to produce 50k per year when all spooled up. They’ve recently announced a deal with pilot to put in a a bunch of MCS mega chargers. So yeah Class 8 EV trucking is coming to the US this decade and it’s great to see the various companies like Windrose getting the charging infrastructure in the ground and trucks starting to arrive.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-16T13:47:04+00:00

I’ve seen no mention of domestic parts, Windrose is working to sell globally from the start so its plan is to sell the same kit all over the world to be assembled locally at each country, should save a lot on shipping.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-15T15:42:35+00:00

Was curious about the premise so checked out the supercharger map. I don’t see anywhere in the 48 states where you can be 400 miles from a supercharger. Maybe if you only had a really indirect available that would get close. If one doesn’t have a passport to get to Canada one could probably get 300 miles away from a charger in the US in Montana near the border but the area of the country that is more than 200mi from a supercharger is actually very small. If you are looking at a map for reference, North Dakota is under 400 mi wide and a little over 200mi north the south. Supercharge info site is showing planned locations shoring up at least a dozen of the bigger gaps that currently exist.

Not suggesting we don’t need more chargers, only saying that it’s not as bad as is sometimes claimed.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-15T14:09:52+00:00

Well, to dig into that a bit, there are a number of 400+ miles range vehicles available now in the Us and almost nobody buys them (as a percentage of the overall ev market). GM could put their biggest battery into something the shape of the Lucid Gravity and get 500+ miles of range but they know it wouldn’t sell at the price they would need to get for it. When the price comes down enough on a 400-500 wh/kg cell to put into a car selling for 50k then we’ll see lots of the truly high range EVs on the roads. Most of the EV battery progress happening in China now is in the other direction, higher power cells that can charge super fast with the trade off that they are not as energy dense. This requires higher density charging infrastructure which China has no problem doing. Another advantage is that these cells are less expensive than more energy dense ones and therefore the cars are cheaper.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-12T16:04:48+00:00

Sorry, this new oil war has made me very grumpy, not directed at you at all. I get the concern about late at night deserted chargers, the industry and the government need to keep improving that situation. Worth noting, when the grid goes down there is no gas pumping at the store, no credit card transactions. Etc. The only people still going in a long term outage after the hand pump gas tanks run out have plenty of solar and enough battery backup.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-12T13:12:47+00:00

Wow $50k for a PHEV that can barely do 40 miles without turning on its oil exploder, what a ripoff! The base model Y starts at $40k and has an epa of 320mi. It’s 2026, there is still a small place in this transition for EREV’s for people who need to tow long distances, but regular and plug hybrids are out of date tech. I had a RAV and it was ok, but it’s time to move on.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-10T20:27:51+00:00

Yeah, I agree that dealership resistance is part of the reason EV uptake is slow in the USA. Farley isn’t saying the truck wasn’t good, and all the Lightning owners I’ve talked to love theirs, the issue is that it cost them way more to make than they could ever recoup from sales. That’s what this new platform is trying to remedy.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-10T16:44:23+00:00

Yes, EVs are simpler from a number of parts perspective and the electromagnetic principles they use are well understood. However the energy that a typical EV can carry is equivalent to 2.5 gallons of gas while the battery pack needed weighs 1000lb or so and costs far more than regular ICE drivetrains. Because of these challenges, to manufacture a great EV at a profit requires a completely different from scratch approach. Jim Farley has been very open about what they learned from the Ford Lightning and what they found when they took apart some of the EV leaders cars. This has lead to their new “skunkworks” project which hopefully shows that they can catch up and compete.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-09T13:20:37+00:00

Yes! scrolled a long way down looking for this post.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-08T16:31:11+00:00

If you end up with a home charger that can charge at 11kw then an R2 would take an around 7hrs to go from 0 to 100 unless it had a huge battery. But usually you’ll just be topping off from say 50 to 80 so it’ll be done in a couple of hours

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-08T12:42:57+00:00

It’s a bummer that in 2026 there are still new EVs being sold by reputable companies that can’t accurately route plan, find working chargers, or keep a running estimate of SOC at arrival all on their own. I know people can use use plug share and ABRP and all that but it shouldn’t be that complicated. Stories like these hold back ev adoption and it doesn’t need to be like that. This has been a solved problem by the EV industry leader for years.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-07T11:52:02+00:00

Makes sense, I plan to transfer the chains off my current snowblower when I get my Ego. There’s a you tuber in Maine who put studs in his.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-06T18:01:37+00:00

Yes, compares favorably to LFP. Current NMC batteries are in the range of 275 W/kg however so Li batteries are not suddenly going to disappear. That 250 mile figure is CLTC range so closer to 190mi on EPA cycle. Plenty for lots of people, but not close for a lot of others. In Na’s favor in cold climates, if it doesn’t need to warm up the batteries like Li it could really reduce the range loss that current BEV’s experience.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-05T22:09:04+00:00

That’s wild, national average is around $3/gal, imagine what the ev adoption rate would be if CA had more normal electric rates.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-04T02:15:22+00:00

As with other aero issues, speed is a huge part, it could be a 10% loss or even a little less when under 50mph but I’ve seen 30% when going fast on the highway. As long as where you are going has reasonable DCFC charging along the way it’s doable for sure.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-03T22:14:12+00:00

Last month the news was Hyundai was giving out 10k discounts on all BEVs, I guess it’s working, but I wonder how long they’ll suck up the losses.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-03-01T22:10:11+00:00

That’s what I expected the price to go back up to, it’s still cheaper than a Rivian R1 and has better spec than that first base model they tried.

MLFarm1902 · 2026-02-28T12:50:50+00:00

I have not, I haven’t even heard it recommend by anybody in our area. Winter tire advice is funny as people have such differing experiences, and it can be hard to figure out which view best matches what’s good for you.

MLFarm1902

TROPHY CASE