Towing an Electric RV
An electric travel trailer carries a battery large enough to run a home. That battery has to be filled, repeatedly, in places chosen for their scenery rather than their electrical service. How you solve that is the decision that shapes the rest of the experience: how often you stop, how long for, how much planning a travel day takes, and how far from a hookup you can comfortably get.
There are two ways to answer it.
Both work. Both have people travelling on them right now. They are not better and worse versions of the same thing; they are different trips, with different strengths, and the right one depends on how you like to camp rather than on which is technically superior.
This site exists because the second path had almost no public data behind it. So it was instrumented and driven — more than 6,000 towing miles, including two measured campaigns: 3,719 miles in July 2026 logging 42 vehicle parameters at 2-second cadence, and a September 2026 campaign to the Salton Sea at 46 parameters and 1 Hz, with fuel accounting reconciled against the truck’s own totaliser to 0.21% mean error or better. What follows is what that produced, with measured figures separated from modelled ones throughout.
Start with the question
The two answers
The first is the mainstream path and needs no introduction from this site — it is covered as a field guide inside the page above, written from owner experience rather than advocacy. The second is newer, less documented, and is where this project’s measurements live.
Charged From Infrastructure
Home, campgrounds, and public stations — the way most electric trailers are charged today, and where roughly 70% of LightShip position holders are heading with battery-electric tow vehicles. A field guide to what experienced owners plan around, with the published numbers on how the network actually distributes.
What to plan for → Path TwoCharged From the Tow Vehicle
An umbilical from the tow vehicle’s bed outlet to the trailer’s nose, connected while driving. Available to any tow vehicle with a 240 V bed outlet — including fully electric trucks. Measured across more than 6,000 towing miles with no en route charging stop.
See the measurements →What the second path measured
Figures below are measured on this rig at 5.8 kW continuous transfer (5.69–6.06 kW delivered, no thermal derate observed through 104 °F). LightShip’s published charger rating is higher; everything here is prototype data and labelled as such. The full reconciled table is on the Specifications page.
Campaign 1 · July 2026 · Prescott → Broomfield → Oshkosh → Prescott, 3,719 mi
Campaign 2 · September 2026 · Prescott ⇄ Thermal CA via the Salton Sea
