A concept for the EV crowd
Recently debuting at the Dusseldorf Caravan Salon, the Dethleffs e.Home Coco is a small, self-contained trailer that does more than house people. It is a mobile power station that can assist or minimize the strain of towing on its own. Keep in mind: this is a concept and a European one at that, so seeing something like this on our roads may take some time.
… but the idea has merit.
It uses electric motors to move
Yep, the Dethleffs e.Home Coco has electric motors in the wheel hubs to propel the little trailer as you tow. This makes it much easier to pull for small and EV-based vehicles. It has an intelligent control module that allows for torque vectoring to control each wheel’s speed. It can even steer and park itself, without the vehicle, using your smartphone.
Regenerative braking along with solar panels recharge the system’s batteries.
Dethleffs (based in Germany) says the e.Home Coco is fully self-reliant. It has a 80 kWh battery pack which is large enough to keep the camper powered for extended periods of time. Large solar panels on the roof keep recharging the batteries when you’re off the grid, away from other power sources.
Maybe it could have helped?
Recently, Roman and Tommy made an attempt to tow a trailer for a camping trip. It didn’t go well. One of the most pressing issues was (of coarse) range. They experienced such a massive drop off in range, they scrubbed the adventure before it could truly get going.
Our Tesla Model X has towed before, but the power drain is prodigious to say the lest. They hoped a short rout to each Tesla charger would help. It didn’t. This overall failure was after experimenting with a gas powered generator to assist in their range issues.
Something that can power itself, or at least aid in moving itself in the most difficult situations, could have helped. Perhaps, if something like the Dethleffs e.Home Coco was available, this trip could have been more of a success. Maybe.
By the way, Andre and I had a similar idea way back during the filming of MMUSA. Just sayin’.
