Across much of America, electric vehicles (EVs) can now play almost every role we ask our gasoline-powered cars to play from day to day. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the average American car owner drives less than 30 miles per day. The shortest-range EV on the market this year can do more than four times that distance on a single charge.
Yet, there are tasks an EV cannot easily perform. Long road trips, towing a heavy load, and refueling where charging infrastructure is slim or nonexistent still limit their application. A weekend trip with a camping trailer, for instance, would require most EV owners to rent a gasoline-powered car.
A Colorado company has come up with a unique solution to that problem.
Sleeps Four, Atop a Bank of Batteries
The Boulder is a camping trailer built on a bed of batteries, capable of recharging the EV that tows it. Colorado Teardrops describes itself as “a family business at the foot of the Rocky Mountains that currently employs 18 local, skilled craftsmen and craftswomen.”
The company’s Boulder trailer is an insulated teardrop-shaped camping trailer. It sleeps four, with a queen-size bed and two bunk beds. It features a full galley capable of supporting a refrigerator, a cooktop stove, and a small bread baking oven. And it’s built atop a bed of auxiliary batteries capable of recharging an EV through an included DC fast charger cable.
Recharge at the Campsite for the Drive Home
Colorado Teardrops advertises the trailer as a way to extend an EV’s range or get into the wilderness for a camping trip and then recharge your EV for the trip home.
The Boulder contains a 75 kWh battery pack. That’s about average size for the EVs currently on the market. For comparison, the shortest-range EV on the market today, the Nissan Leaf, ships with a standard 40 kWh battery pack. The larger Ford Mustang Mach-E crossover is available with a 68 kWh or an 88 kWh battery.
Automakers will be introducing many electric pickups over the next several years, which are likely to carry much larger batteries the Boulder might not be capable of fully recharging.
But the trailer is a creative solution, the automotive equivalent of a portable battery pack to extend a phone’s life. It starts at $45,000.
