Waiting to order my Gravity until someone posts towing results. I'm going to need to tow a 3500 lb. trailer/car (open trailer, relatively low wind resistance) at least 150 miles without recharging, and I can't believe that after 6 months I haven't seen anyone post towing mileage yet. Anybody try towing? Thanks in advance.
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Does anybody have a Gravity with a trailer hitch?
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There are not that many Gravities in the wild yet, so it'll probably be a bit before anyone has hard data for you. But, there's enough data about towing with EVs generally, and so this question can be reasonably confidently answered. Assuming by your description you're talking about cargo that's not standing above the height of the Gravity's roof line, and considering the reasonable trailer weight, it'd be surprising if your range decreased to less than 45% of the rated range. Even with the worst case range rating of 370 miles (Dream edition, largest wheels), that's 166.5 miles of range. So within your requirements.
The Gravity owner’s manual says that towing is not yet supported and warns you not to do it. Towing will be added in a software update.
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Since there seem to be less than, say 20 in the wild, not surprised if they didn’t focus on this yet. But can’t tell if you’re joking…
Thanks!
Gee, I seem to recall them towing A PLANE with an early Gravity…
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Model X pulled a Qantas 787 Dreamliner...
F-150 Lightning pulled a 1,000,000 lb train...
But the Gravity looked really good pulling that jet
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Just to clarify on the hitch weight...
Tongue weight is how much you can push down on the end of the hitch (where a trailer would be mounted to a ball mount) before it threatens the structural integrity of the receiver. It's also balanced against the dynamics of towing. You can also measure how hard you can pull forward/back before the receiver or the ball mount experiences some sort of structural failure to get an idea of how much trailer you could structurally tow. Trailer weight and hitch geometry also impacts handling and so there is a maximum based on those aspects as well. Likely they aren't going to put a receiver/hitch mechanism on the car that can carry much more weight than the towing rating they are aiming for. If they want to tow 6000lbs, they'll manufacture a hitch mechanism that can resist 600+??lbs of vertical force using a 10:1 rule of thumb.
But, accessory mounting weight is always less than the tongue weight (100% required by physics and the leverage of holding a weight from one end as opposed to a trailer that supports the other end). And the problem is that it cannot be expressed as a "weight". If they list a weight, they are mostly making the number up based on best guesses as to what the consumer might do with the accessory. The real answer to "how big a rack can I attach" is a bunch of data and an equation and the consumer has to measure a bunch of things on the rack and the weights of everything they will be attaching to the rack and computing that equation with the data from the manufacturer and the data from measuring their equipment and then you'd have an answer that can be measured.
If you get a pilot's license, not only do you get trained on how to do these calculations (because how much the passengers weigh in a small plane and where they are sitting can be critical and may be the difference between flying and crashing). You must perform this calculation in front of the examiner to get your license. It's not hard - it's mostly (1 dimensional) geometry with values supplied by the airplane manufacturer and asking the passengers what their weight is, but you have to know how to do the calculation and ideally you should double-check it every time you fly (but most pilots learn what the limits of their preferred plane are and just eyeball it). I got my license in gliders and so the calculation was simple, just 2 figures for where the seats are located multiplied by 2 weights of pilot and passenger, sum and compare to 2 limits that say whether you will be nose or tail heavy beyond the design of the control surfaces.
But, a car consumer will not accept all of that work (even if it is grade school math) and the vagueness of that answer and instead demand that the manufacturer of the car/truck just give them a weight. And so a manufacturer has to guess what kinds of racks the consumer might want to use and how much cargo weight they'll add and where they will attach that cargo to the rack and there are so many options there that they have to basically guess based on assumptions as to how ridiculous the consumer might get.
So, the tongue weight is 600 lbs. It might be able to hold more, but that is a conservative figure based on tests of the mechanism and the construction needed to tow the largest trailer they can tow without losing handling control.
The accessory weight is going to be less, but a rack that sits right at the bumper can hold more than a rack that has a nice long arm on it. Bike racks that hold the bikes closer to each other could hold more bikes than ones that space them out so they don't entangle the delicate parts. It's not a hard fast answer. The computation is mostly weight times distance from the reference point all added up. They could also create a machine that you hang the actual fully loaded rack on that would measure the leveraged weight for you, but I've never seen that done.
Considering all of that, Lucid is comfortable telling you 110lbs because you didn't really understand what the real considerations are and asked them to just give you a number...
Can it hold more? Maybe, depending on your specific rack and the order and position of the cargo on it (most racks tell you to put the heavier bikes nearer the car in order to somewhat mitigate this leverage issue).
Might it hold less? Actually that is possible, but you'd need an accessory rack that was enough longer with enough distant cargo holds than they anticipated when they created the conservative figure they gave you when you put a virtual gun to their head. Put a 50lb weight on a 20 foot pole and it will likely separate even the sturdiest receivers from their frames despite not weighing much.
Tongue weight is how much you can push down on the end of the hitch (where a trailer would be mounted to a ball mount) before it threatens the structural integrity of the receiver. It's also balanced against the dynamics of towing. You can also measure how hard you can pull forward/back before the receiver or the ball mount experiences some sort of structural failure to get an idea of how much trailer you could structurally tow. Trailer weight and hitch geometry also impacts handling and so there is a maximum based on those aspects as well. Likely they aren't going to put a receiver/hitch mechanism on the car that can carry much more weight than the towing rating they are aiming for. If they want to tow 6000lbs, they'll manufacture a hitch mechanism that can resist 600+??lbs of vertical force using a 10:1 rule of thumb.
But, accessory mounting weight is always less than the tongue weight (100% required by physics and the leverage of holding a weight from one end as opposed to a trailer that supports the other end). And the problem is that it cannot be expressed as a "weight". If they list a weight, they are mostly making the number up based on best guesses as to what the consumer might do with the accessory. The real answer to "how big a rack can I attach" is a bunch of data and an equation and the consumer has to measure a bunch of things on the rack and the weights of everything they will be attaching to the rack and computing that equation with the data from the manufacturer and the data from measuring their equipment and then you'd have an answer that can be measured.
If you get a pilot's license, not only do you get trained on how to do these calculations (because how much the passengers weigh in a small plane and where they are sitting can be critical and may be the difference between flying and crashing). You must perform this calculation in front of the examiner to get your license. It's not hard - it's mostly (1 dimensional) geometry with values supplied by the airplane manufacturer and asking the passengers what their weight is, but you have to know how to do the calculation and ideally you should double-check it every time you fly (but most pilots learn what the limits of their preferred plane are and just eyeball it). I got my license in gliders and so the calculation was simple, just 2 figures for where the seats are located multiplied by 2 weights of pilot and passenger, sum and compare to 2 limits that say whether you will be nose or tail heavy beyond the design of the control surfaces.
But, a car consumer will not accept all of that work (even if it is grade school math) and the vagueness of that answer and instead demand that the manufacturer of the car/truck just give them a weight. And so a manufacturer has to guess what kinds of racks the consumer might want to use and how much cargo weight they'll add and where they will attach that cargo to the rack and there are so many options there that they have to basically guess based on assumptions as to how ridiculous the consumer might get.
So, the tongue weight is 600 lbs. It might be able to hold more, but that is a conservative figure based on tests of the mechanism and the construction needed to tow the largest trailer they can tow without losing handling control.
The accessory weight is going to be less, but a rack that sits right at the bumper can hold more than a rack that has a nice long arm on it. Bike racks that hold the bikes closer to each other could hold more bikes than ones that space them out so they don't entangle the delicate parts. It's not a hard fast answer. The computation is mostly weight times distance from the reference point all added up. They could also create a machine that you hang the actual fully loaded rack on that would measure the leveraged weight for you, but I've never seen that done.
Considering all of that, Lucid is comfortable telling you 110lbs because you didn't really understand what the real considerations are and asked them to just give you a number...
Can it hold more? Maybe, depending on your specific rack and the order and position of the cargo on it (most racks tell you to put the heavier bikes nearer the car in order to somewhat mitigate this leverage issue).
Might it hold less? Actually that is possible, but you'd need an accessory rack that was enough longer with enough distant cargo holds than they anticipated when they created the conservative figure they gave you when you put a virtual gun to their head. Put a 50lb weight on a 20 foot pole and it will likely separate even the sturdiest receivers from their frames despite not weighing much.
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