Towing a caravan with an EV
Yes, if the car's tow rating covers the van and you plan the trip around chargers.
Towing costs an electric car a large share of its range, and it changes where you can stop.
Every figure below is a maker's published number, and the worked estimate shows the assumptions it runs on.
Updated . 13 min read • Technical Guide
Yes, if the car's published rating covers the van, and you plan the trip around charger locations.
Check the towball download limit and the payload left in the car as well as the tow rating. Your car's maker publishes all three for your exact variant.
- Published braked tow ratings - 300kg to 2,500kg (Electric cars on sale in Australia, RAC WA round-up, January 2025)
- Measured range drop when towing - around 55% (What Car? test of eight EVs, caravan at 85% of the car's kerb weight)
Charging bays are built for cars without a van behind them
Most fast chargers sit in ordinary parking spaces. A car with a van behind it does not fit in one, so you unhitch to charge, or find a pull-through bay.
Why towing costs so much range
On a flat highway the car is paying for two things:
- •Rolling resistance, which rises with weight.
- •Pushing air out of the way, which rises with the size and shape of the van, and with speed.
At highway speed the air is the bigger cost by a wide margin. Drag rises with the square of speed, and the power needed rises with the cube of it. The last ten kilometres an hour cost far more than the first ten.
Shape matters more than mass
At a steady 100km/h on the flat, the van's shape costs more energy than its mass. Mass gets the attention because it is the number on the compliance plate and the number the tow rating uses.
A caravan is taller and usually wider than the car, with a flat front and a squared-off back, and it travels in disturbed air behind the car. The car is pushing a second, less aerodynamic body through the air.
So a low camper and a full-height family van of the same mass use different amounts of energy at the same speed. The published tests show the spread:
- •Fleet testing reported by Fleet News in 2023 found towing cut real-world range by 23 to 31%.
- •What Car? tow-car testing, with a caravan loaded to 85% of the car's kerb weight, measured an average drop of 54.6% across eight electric cars.
Mass matters most where you change speed or altitude. Hills, headwinds, roadworks and stop-start town driving all cost extra for the extra tonne and a half. Regenerative braking returns some of the energy spent climbing when you come back down, which helps in country like the Great Dividing Range. It cannot recover energy spent pushing air.
A diesel pays the same energy cost
A diesel wagon towing the same van pushes the same air, and its fuel use rises for the same reasons. The difference is the refuelling stop: how long it takes, and where you can take it.
A diesel refills in about five minutes at any servo, so a 40% drop in economy costs you at the counter and nothing else. An electric car refills in tens of minutes at a place you planned for, so the same 40% changes how the whole day is arranged.
Speed is the part you control
Because the power needed to push through air rises with the cube of speed, easing from 100km/h to 90km/h cuts the aerodynamic part of the demand by roughly a quarter (0.9 cubed is 0.73).
Total consumption falls by less than that, because rolling resistance, the heater or air conditioning, and drivetrain losses do not scale the same way. Easing off is still the biggest saving available from the driver's seat, and it costs nothing.
Some states cap towing speeds below the posted limit, and the rules change at a border. Our interstate border law checker lists what changes at each crossing.
What the tow ratings on current EVs look like
Published braked ratings spread widely and change with each model update. When RAC surveyed the electric cars on sale in Australia in January 2025, the braked tow ratings ran from 300kg to 2,500kg. The electric utes arriving since have pushed the top of that higher.
Because the ratings change that often, work from the manufacturer's current spec sheet for the exact variant, and nothing else.
One model name can carry two tow ratings
Kia publishes a braked towing capacity of 900kg for the EV9 Air and 2,500kg for the EV9 Earth and GT-Line. Same badge, same body, and the gap decides whether a caravan can be towed at all.
The same split runs across the segment, usually tied to the battery and the number of motors. A model name on its own will not tell you whether a car can tow your van.
Three other numbers usually run out first
The braked rating is the most the car is approved to pull. In practice one of these three sets the real limit, so find out which before you settle on a van.
Towball download (ball weight)
Australian vans typically press down on the hitch with about a tenth of their loaded weight, so a 2,500kg van puts roughly 250kg on the ball. Two limits have to clear that figure: the car's published towball limit, and the car's payload, because the car carries the ball weight. Use the van's published ball weight where there is one, and treat the lower of the two limits as the one that binds.
Payload
A battery is heavy, so a large electric SUV can have less spare carrying capacity than its size suggests. Passengers, the dog, the gear in the boot, the bikes on the back and the van's ball weight all come out of the same allowance. Work the payload out with the car loaded the way you travel.
Gross combination mass (GCM)
Car and van together have a combined ceiling, and it is often less than the tow rating plus the car's own gross vehicle mass (GVM). Where that is true, using all of the tow rating means you cannot use all of the car's payload, even though each number reads fine on its own.
Most cars rated for real towing need the manufacturer's own tow bar, and anything over the light-trailer threshold needs an electric brake controller. Kia lists the EV9 trailer brake kit as a separate accessory from the tow bar, so budget for both.
Put your own numbers through the tow calculator and the payload calculator. If ball weight is the number you are chasing, our caravans by tow ball weight pages sort the catalogue by it. How the weights fit together is in caravan weights explained.
Charging with the van still hitched
Charging with the van attached is a problem of physical space.
Almost every DC fast charger in the country was installed in an ordinary parking bay: a shopping centre carpark, a servo, the side of a country pub. A tow car with a seven metre van behind it is over twelve metres long, turns wide and reverses differently. The bay can be free and the charger working, and you still cannot get the car to it.
RAC says most charging stations are not configured for towing, so charging takes more planning and typically means taking the trailer off the car. RAC has called for chargers to be spaced more closely along popular routes and for charging areas that suit vehicles with trailers.
At the charger
- • You unhitch, charge, and re-hitch. Twice a day for three months is a different thing from once, so think it through before you commit.
- • A pull-through bay, a truck stop or a long empty edge of a carpark solves it where you can find one. No national list of sites that work exists, so it comes down to satellite view and other people's trip reports.
- • Where the charge port sits on the car decides whether you drive in forwards or reverse into the bay with the van on.
- • You will sometimes occupy two bays. Most people are decent about it, and it is still worth avoiding at a busy site when there is an alternative.
Charging at the caravan park
A powered site is not a fast charger, and whether you may use one for the car is up to the park. Policies vary and some parks say no, so ask when you book.
Where it is allowed, an overnight charge on a park outlet adds a modest amount. The worked estimate below puts figures on a 15 amp and a 10 amp outlet.
Plan the route you are driving
Coverage on the coastal highways is very different from coverage inland, and a national charger count says nothing about the leg you drive on Thursday. Open the network maps, look at the towns you will stop in, and note how many have one unit rather than four. Then plan as though that one unit is occupied, because sooner or later it will be.
One leg, worked through
Take a run most south-east Queensland caravanners have done: Brisbane to Hervey Bay, about 290km on the Bruce Highway. The figures below work that leg for an electric car with a van behind it.
These are estimates from stated assumptions, and you can change any of them. Every result is a range, because consumption while towing varies with the load, the weather and the speed.
A kilowatt-hour (kWh) is to a battery what a litre is to a fuel tank. This car carries about 95 of them, and consumption is measured in kWh per 100km, the way a diesel's is measured in litres.
The assumptions
- The car: a large electric SUV rated to tow, with about 95kWh of usable battery.
- The van: a full-height single-axle tourer, the shape most of the published towing tests used.
- Towing consumption: 28 to 34kWh/100km, the band the published tests land in for a full-height van at highway speed. This assumption does the most work.
- Usable window: leave home full, plan to arrive with 10% in reserve, so about 85kWh for the leg.
- Conditions: 100km/h where signed, flat to gently undulating, no strong headwind, mild weather.
How that adds up
- Energy available for the leg: about 85kWh (95kWh usable, arriving on 10%).
- At 34kWh/100km, that is about 250km.
- At 28kWh/100km, that is about 305km.
- The leg is 290km.
Whether you arrive depends on the day
On a good day, flat and calm and sitting on 90, you get there. On a warm day with a headwind and the van loaded heavy, you run short somewhere around Gympie. So plan a charging stop rather than relying on the good end of the band, and ignore the unladen range figure on the window sticker, which is no guide to a towing leg.
What a charging stop is worth
Say you want another 150km of towing range. On the same consumption band that is 42 to 51kWh.
- On a 350kW site, if the car holds an average of 100 to 150kW across the session: roughly 17 to 30 minutes. Charging slows as the battery fills, so the back half is always slower than the front half.
- On a 50kW site: closer to an hour. The charger's output sets that time more than the car does.
- Overnight on a 15 amp caravan park outlet (about 3.4kW, allowing roughly 10% for charging losses), twelve hours: roughly 110 to 130km of towing range.
- Overnight on a 10 amp outlet (about 2.3kW, same allowance), twelve hours: roughly 70 to 90km.
If the bay is not a pull-through, add the time to unhitch and re-hitch to the fast-charge figures.
All of this is arithmetic on stated assumptions, and your own figures will differ. Heat, cold, headwind, hills, tyre pressures, how the van is loaded and how fast you drive all move the result, which is why the band is wide.
Where an EV suits a caravanner today
Short, planned trips that start from a home charger are where an electric car works well today.
It works well when
- • The van lives at a park or a block a few hours away, and the whole leg fits inside one charge.
- • You charge at home overnight, so most trips start full without a public charger involved.
- • The van is light and low. A pop-top, a camper or a small single-axle van cuts frontal area, which saves more energy than cutting the same amount of weight.
- • Mains power waits at the other end, and you have already checked the chargers on the route.
- • The car does the other ninety-odd percent of your driving, and the towing is a handful of weekends a year.
Worth thinking harder about when
- • Long legs where the chargers you have actually verified sit further apart than your towing range.
- • A full-height van close to the car's tow rating, with no margin left.
- • Towball download or payload that is already tight before the van is loaded.
- • Trips with a fixed arrival time, where a queue at the one charger in town is a real problem.
- • A week off the mains, where the car is parked and the van is running on its own battery anyway.
Charging at home overnight means you start every trip full, with no servo and no public charger. The long remote legs are where the difficulty sits.
The big lap
People are doing the big lap with an electric car and writing up how it went. Whether it would work for you comes down to these questions.
How far apart are the chargers on the roads you would actually drive?
Map the specific legs you have in mind, then halve your usual range and check whether the gaps between chargers still work.
What happens when the one charger in town is busy or out?
Single-unit sites are common outside the cities, so a second charger you can reach has to be part of the plan before you leave.
Are you happy to unhitch to charge, possibly twice a day, for months?
Unhitching once is a nuisance. On a lap around the country it is most days for months on end.
Does the van you want fit inside the towball and GCM (Gross Combination Mass) numbers when it is loaded?
Use the loaded weight with water, gear and the awning on board rather than the brochure Tare, and work it out before you shortlist vans.
How much of the day are you willing to spend stopped?
Some people tour in short hops and read a book while the car charges. Others want six hundred kilometres before smoko. The short-hop pattern is the one that fits an electric car today.
What is the plan for service and recovery a long way from anywhere?
Worth asking your insurer and the manufacturer what roadside assistance covers when you are towing, and how far the nearest authorised service is on your route.
Some people treat that planning as part of the trip and enjoy it. Others would rather drive to Broome without thinking about charging at all.
Buy now or wait
It depends on your own driving, your own van and the routes you use.
Judge it on the trips you actually take.
Most caravanners do a handful of long runs and a lot of short ones. A weekend van two hours away sits well inside what an electric car handles today. Six months around the country asks a great deal more of the charging network.
The car you buy now has to work on the network that exists during your ownership.
The network is being built out and the pace of it is unknown. Plan on the chargers installed and working on your routes today, and treat anything announced as a bonus if it arrives.
The van decides more than the car does.
If you already own a tall 3,000kg van, few electric cars are rated to pull it and the range penalty sits at the harsh end. If the van is still to be chosen, a lighter and lower one improves both numbers at once.
A household with two cars has a third option.
Plenty of people run an electric car for the daily driving and keep a second car for the towing weeks, so each one does the job it suits.
Think about how long you keep a car.
If you change cars every three years, you are buying into today's network and selling before the next stage of it is built. If you keep a car for a decade, more of the build-out happens while you own it.
Work out the van, run the weights, and look at the chargers on the routes you drive.
Run your own numbers
Two questions decide it: what the car is rated to pull, and what payload is left once the van is loaded. Both take a couple of minutes.
Already know which van you are looking at? Check your car against it directly.
Related guides
Caravan weights explained
ATM (Aggregate Trailer Mass), tare, GTM, GCM and ball weight, and how the five fit together.
Electric caravans
48V systems and gasless vans, which is about the van rather than the car.
Interstate border laws
Towing speed limits and rules that change when you cross a state line.
Portable power stations
Sizing the van's own power in watt-hours, with every assumption published.