You could tow with a Tesla, as much as you could tow with a Prius, but we wouldn’t recommend it.
On the other hand, you can buy a hitch receiver for a Toyota Prius as well as you can buy one for an electric vehicle (maybe), but should you tow with an electric vehicle?
Indeed, even Tesla Motors recommends against it, as it could void your Tesla Model S warranty. On the other hand, a single picture speaks volumes regarding the towing capacity of at least one electric vehicle, the Tesla Model S and (maybe) the upcoming Tesla Model X. After all, the Tesla Model X battery electric SUV could be much more useful if it had a tow-rating, though it would definitely cut into range.
The picture of this electric vehicle in testing, a Tesla Model S cruising I-680 in California, perhaps near Tesla Motors’ Fremont home base, clearly shows a test mule in action. The picture shows some test equipment, torque sensors on the wheels, and a partially-loaded U-Haul 6×12 trailer, the biggest that can be rented. The unloaded trailer weighs in at 1,730 lb, and has a capacity of 2,670 lb, for a total GVWR (gross vehicle weight rating) of 4,400 lb.
Being as the Tesla Model S and Tesla Model X are based on similar platforms, Tesla Motors could be testing its electric vehicle hardware or software, or both, giving a future towing rating somewhere between 1,700 lb and 4,400 lb, judging by this one photograph. Pretty cool, but what kind of range could one expect of an 85 kWh Tesla Model X towing 4,400 lb? I would love to see something official from Tesla on this. Are there any takers from Tesla High Command?
you are starting off with a wrong assumption, so everything you said afterwards was wrong. Diesel Engines do NOT create energy, they are extracting energy from the fuel by burning it and producing a lot of byproducts. That energy once came from the Sun and materialized in decomposed organic plant matter.
Electricity, on the other hand, is stored chemically in batteries and comes from the same sun through the burning of fuels, spinning of wind mills or using solar panels. None of these approaches CREATES energy. The only difference is that one contains carbon stored for millions of years, the other can be collected on-the-fly (is renewable).
Actually, nature provided us with a good carbon storage technology, only we used it for a different purpose it was meant for, because we found out that by burning it we would release the energy. That’s what the whole EV movement idea is all about these days – not burning fossil fuels, while solar power is unlimited.
Let me chime-in here, for a second. The difference between electric ‘motors’ and gasoline (or fueled) ‘engines’ is: (1) engines ‘create’ ENERGY; while (2) motors ‘use’ ENERGY…period.
That principle being made, EV’s have something I call an “EngineMotor”, which sort of defies the above principle by creating a diminishing type of energy that supports its own self-sustained weight, and now, plus it’s passenger/cargo weight.
The new “EngineMotor” is made possible as post 1947 discoveries have blurred the technical lines between AC and DC motors. However, the ability of an EngineMotor to ‘carry it’s own weight’ along with passenger/cargo, diminishes exponentially as to increased size (and thereby weight), of the ‘motor’ itself, AND therefore it’s corresponding ‘batteries’, that must also be increased by a factor relative to the ADDITIONAL WEIGHT of anything to be towed.
By the above factor, the Diesel Engine has the greatest ability to produce ENERGY relative to it’s overhead. Again, Rudolph and Nikola, Rudolph and Nikola.