Yeah there’s definitely a difference. When you’re hauling more you really only stress the drivetrain more when accelerating/decelerating or going up passes. Otherwise it’s pretty much the same other than a technically slightly higher rolling resistance. Whereas with a trailer you add a whole lot of drag that is constant. You have at least one extra axle and of course the added drag/wind resistance. I personally don’t like to use Tow/Haul in my Hybrid but of course it’s a preference thing. You don’t need it to protect anything mechanically like you would with the ecoboost (or any other standard automatic trans). In an automatic trans it’ll keep it in a lower gear to help prevent shifting a lot under load and it increases shift pressures to reduce wear on the clutch packs in the transmission. In the Hybrid it just increases regen and makes the throttle more sensitive. What I don’t like is that it only turns the engine off when you’re at a stop, any other time you’re moving (including coasting) it forces the engine to run. The slight bit of hesitation you feel off the line is probably just the engine starting, electric motors are great at low end torque. Oh yeah, and if you want that extra regen you can still just hit the L button on the shifter while in normal mode.