Try towing a van with an EV, page-158

Hey Dex.

Have you considered renting a van/cabin at the sites your family is going to ? Might take a bit of planning but it's not a bad alternative.

If you're worried about depreciation/cost of buying a 4WD , you can rent an awful lot of cabins/motel rooms/onsite vans for the price of a new 4WD instead.

Just drive there in your Skoda.

If you really decide to do the grey nomad thing, I wouldn't worry about the depreciation. If it is something that you really enjoy, the experience will outweigh the cost.

Life's too short and all that........

I already own a couple of vehicles that are effectively tow rigs but are used as cars 90% of the time. Both diesels, both low kms, both quite well depreciated . So, I'll be keeping them for towing duties and other uses until evs are good enough for everything. Bit of a luxury I know but that's my choice.

I agree with you that many people will own an ev and have an old diesel sitting around for towing duties.

That's not particularly different to now though when you think about it. Many families have two vehicles. One is a 4WD and the other a smaller efficient run around.

If people buy evs for most of their driving and just use a diesel for occasional towing we will still see a significant overall reduction of emissions from cars over time.

I've looked at the options that will be available in Australia in the next couple of years. F150 lightning and Rivian. I'd be happy to use one of them to tow now even though their towing range is not as good as a diesel. The only thing holding them back is charging points although by the time they reach the Australian market, I think there will be many more charging options available. Caravan parks will be able to make a bit more money by offering it as a service I reckon.
I think we'll see businesses in general that have large electrical supplies already start to put in charging stations around the place. After all, every single electrical installation is a potential ev charging point. No restrictions like there are with petrol stations etc.

I reckon the grey nomads will help the charging network expand although the GN's are notorious tight A's so they may not to want to pay too much for the service.

I think that after 2030 there will be that many charging options available that people won't bother keeping the old tow rig. They simply won't need to. A reasonable increase in energy density of batteries in that time will also help close the gap.

Up until 2030 for sure as I have highlighted above but post 2030 I reckon it will be just about all over for domestic diesels.