As is the case with a legacy car, towing a trailer with an EV drastically reduces vary—as John Voelcker present in his latest take a look at of a Ford F-150 Lightning (see the newest problem of Charged), towing can cut back vary by 40% or much more. However what if the trailer had its personal electrical powertrain?
That’s the thought behind the primary product to be launched by Lightship Power, a startup created by a bunch of former Tesla workers.
The corporate was co-founded by Ben Parker, who labored on the Mannequin 3 battery pack and the 4680 battery cell, and Toby Kraus, who managed the Mannequin S program at Tesla earlier than turning into an government at electrical bus maker Proterra. Their unique mission was to impress meals vans, however their consideration turned to the thought of electrifying leisure autos, they usually took a 6,000-mile RV journey to achieve some first-hand details about the market.
“We pulled essentially the most aerodynamic trailer we may lease behind a Tesla Mannequin X and we really needed to drop the trailer in the midst of an off-ramp on an interstate as a result of we couldn’t pull it to the following Supercharger,” Kraus, now Lightship’s COO, advised TechCrunch. “It was depressing.”
In response to Thor Industries, over 600,000 RVs have been offered in North America in 2021, and 90% % of these have been towable journey trailers. “The market is large,” says Kraus.
Lightship Power just lately closed a $23-million Sequence A funding spherical, and plans to make use of the money to develop its first working prototype. The group is engaged on an EV skateboard structure, together with a battery pack comparable to at least one in a Tesla Mannequin 3, which is able to propel the trailer as it’s being towed. Roof-mounted photo voltaic cells may additionally be included.
An electrical truck with a 300-mile vary may see that vary shrink to 100 miles when towing a standard journey trailer at 65 miles an hour, mentioned Parker, Lightship’s CEO. “I feel the gravity of the issue round towing and towing vary is simply beginning to hit residence with folks as extra EV vans are hitting the market. With an EV powertrain on board, you should use that further power for the trailer to propel itself, cut back the entire load on the tow car and get again to a spread loss zero expertise—now you’ve gotten a 300-mile trailer and a 300-mile truck.”
Sources: TechCrunch, Electrek
