S5, E18: Towing With an EV: What Hundreds of Miles Down the Oregon Coast Taught Us

In last week’s episode, host Aislyn Greene shared the story of towing a 20-foot Airstream down the Oregon coast in an all-electric Rivian truck — the campsite mishaps, the strangers who became friends, the joy of slow travel. This week, she’s back with the practical guide: how an EV road trip actually works when you’re towing, and what to know before you try one yourself.

Aislyn sits down with Sarah Eslinger, who heads up Rivian’s Adventure Network, to talk about how the company has been quietly building fast-charging infrastructure in the places EV drivers actually want to go — not just along interstates, but on the edge of Death Valley, outside Yellowstone, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and yes, all along Oregon’s Highway 101.

They get into why 70 percent of Adventure Network sites are trailer-friendly, how the built-in trip planner factors in elevation, heat, and trailer weight, and why Rivian tested its charging bays with an Airstream.

Then Aislyn shares the five things she wishes she’d known before hitching up — from how much range to expect when towing, to the adapter you need to charge overnight at a campsite, to the trailer mirrors that will change your life.

Whether you’re EV-curious, RV-curious, or just love a good road trip, this one’s a window into how the infrastructure for adventure travel is changing — and how much easier it’s getting to take the scenic route.

Transcript

Aislyn: I’m Aislyn Greene and this is Unpacked by Afar. If you listen to last week’s episode, you heard what it was like to tow a 20-foot down the Oregon coast with an all electric Rivian truck. My wife and I took the trip last summer, and I shared our challenges, like learning to back into a campsite and our joys like all the friends we met along the way. What I didn’t get into that much was the tech, because last week we wanted to lean into the story, and this week we want to offer up a guide how an EV road trip actually works if you’re towing, and what to know if you’re thinking about taking a trip like this yourself.

Let’s start with the basics. When we’re looking at an actual EV road trip. Before we took this trip, I didn’t know a ton about EV charging networks. I knew that they were growing and that some worked better than others. And mostly I knew that if you wanted to go off the beaten path, you were often out of luck. But Rivian saw that need in the market. And back in 2022, they launched the Adventure Network.

Sarah: The Rivian Adventure Network is our ever growing fast charging network, open to. Of course, Rivian’s. But now all EVs.

Aislyn: This is Sarah Eslinger, who heads up the Adventure Network.

Sarah: We have sites, you know, opening each week, but where we sit today is that we have 840 chargers across 130 unique locations, and we’re live in 39 states. And those are at locations, you know, along travel corridors. But also, I’m sure we’ll get into it, in places that take you and allow you to go a little bit off the beaten path.

Aislyn: Listeners, please note that this interview was recorded several months ago, and since then, Rivian has expanded to more than 970 chargers across 145 sites. And it’s growing. Two notable new additions are in Mammoth Lakes, California, and in Park City, Utah. And what makes this network different and what really mattered for our trip is where they’re building these stations, because it’s not just along the big interstates. Sarah told me that the whole ethos came from a specific piece of customer feedback after the first sites launched.

Sarah: So we launched the network in the summer of 2022 and the industry was different. You know, EVs have evolved so much since then, but when we first launched the network, we launched a handful of sites, one being in Salida, Colorado, the others being along 395 to explore the eastern Sierra Nevada. And what we really heard from customers was there’s some charging infrastructure. I can kind of get to these places, but once I arrive, I don’t feel like I’m able to explore in the areas that I want to. And so that was something that we really put a lot of effort in thinking about. When we thought about the ethos of the Rivian Adventure Network and how we wanted to expand it.

Aislyn: The company has invested heavily in charging infrastructure in places like Shoshone, California, which is on the edge of Death Valley and along the Blue Ridge Parkway, which never had decent fast charging before. Also Gardiner, Montana, just outside Yellowstone, Joshua Tree, the Eastern Sierras and the Oregon coast, which is where I came in.

And so I was really shocked that we were actually able to charge all along the coastal highway there. I thought we would, you know, have an easier time going if we went up inland. But actually we were able to have a lovely charging experience all along the coast.

Sarah: Right? Like, you know, thinking about the route that you took, not only do we have charging along I-5 or kind of like one hundred and one and the more populated areas. But as soon as you get over to the Oregon coast, we made sure that there were sites because we know people want to explore those areas. You might want to kind of, um, have a base camp out of one of those areas for a while. And so not only are you maybe driving through these areas, but you’re, you’re there for a few days and you want to have kind of a central spot to be able to charge.

Aislyn: We also looked out because at that time, Rivian had just released its built in trip planner. So you punch in a destination, it calculates your charge needs, including the weight of whatever you’re towing, and it tells you where to stop, how long to charge for, and how much juice you’ll have left at the other end, and it updates as you drive. So factoring in elevation, heat and all of the other things that impact battery life. I asked Sarah about the trip planner specifically because it did make the trip so much easier.

Sarah: Yeah, the customer feedback to that feature has been so tremendous. And I think when you peel back why that is, is it’s taking the mental load and the anxiety and the stress off of what you’re really trying to do, which is have a really fun adventure.

Aislyn: It’ll likely come as no surprise that Rivian partnered with Google for this.

Sarah: Google Maps, which everyone uses, knows, and loves, is really a lot of the kind of point of interest, the richness of the data, the hours of operation, the amenities, the routing, the turn by turn. All of that is their expertise. And that’s amazing. And so we’re leveraging that and then building our expertise on top of it, which is the charging recommendations, the optimizing, which charger to go to for, you know, the conditions that you have.

Aislyn: And our trip really put it to the test.

Sarah: I mean, you took arguably one of the more complicated EV road trips, right? Like you were new to the car. You were towing. You were probably on a route that you don’t drive every single day. And so that trifecta, and you were still able to have a seamless and a good experience, I think really speaks to that feature.

Aislyn: Even if you don’t have an EV, you’ve probably seen a charging station. So think about this. If you’re towing something, how exactly do you charge? Because most stations are designed for cars where you pull in and you park in a spot that is the size of a parking spot, and then you charge. If you’re towing something 20 feet long. None of that works. You would have to unhitch your trailer and park it somewhere else, which we did once and then never again. But as we discovered, 70 percent of Rivian Adventure Network sites are trailer friendly. Sarah said that was very intentional and that it took a lot of work.

Sarah: You know, that’s harder for us. It’s more space, it’s more planning, it’s more it’s more more and more because you need all of that. And when we think about the end to end experience, I really do mean end to end. Not only are we thinking about the charger space itself, if you’re towing, but we have to be able to get there from the street. So we’re thinking about the turning radiuses throughout the parking lot. We’re not putting you into a really tight spot where, you know, you can see the charger, but you can’t figure out how to get there.

Aislyn: Yeah. When building out the sites, they even tested with an Airstream like the one that we were towing. And they factored in one other key detail, which you’ll appreciate even more if you’ve listened to the main episode.

Sarah: We try to do pull-thrus, like you mentioned, wherever possible. There’s only a small handful of sites on our network that are trailer friendly, that do require you to back up, but all of our trailer friendly chargers allow you to just kind of pull through and keep on going to the egress of however, you know, you need to get out of the parking lot.

Aislyn: We’re going to take a quick break, but when we’re back, we’ll get into the practical tips for towing with an EV, no matter your vehicle.

Okay, so if this whole thing has planted a seed for you, maybe an EV road trip, maybe towing a small trailer, here’s what I wish I’d known.

Number one, if you’re towing, plan for range should drop by about 40 percent. Our Rivian, which was a tri-motor R1T at full charge, had a range of about 360 miles. Once we hit the 5,000-pound Airstream to it, that dropped to about 200 miles. It’s not a deal breaker, it just means you’re stopping more often or going more slowly. So if you’re planning a long day. Factor in one or two more charging stops and you’d plan for a non towing trip. Or you can lean into slow travel, break up the trip a little bit more.

Number two make sure you understand the idle fee. Most EV charging stations charge a fee if you leave your car for a certain amount of time after you’re done charging. For Tesla, it’s anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar a minute after a 5-minute grace period. For Electrify America, it’s 40 cents a minute after a 10-minute grace period. And for Rivian, it’s 50 cents a minute after a 10-minute grace period.

Number three, make sure you have all the right adapters, because most RV campsites have 30-amp or 50-amp hookups, you can technically charge your EV overnight at your campsite just by plugging in, but you need the right adapter. For us, it was the NEMA 14-50R adapter that we could use at a site with fifty amp service. Just remember that it’s a slow charge. Plus, you need to confirm with your campsite that they allow EV charging. Some don’t, even if they have 50-amp service.

Number four get trailer mirrors if you’re towing anything. This is not an EV specific thing, but obviously most trucks come with mirrors designed for driving the truck. But if you’re pulling something that’s either wider or longer than the truck, you need extenders. There are these mirrors that you can clip on. You can find them usually for about $100 or less, and they really change your ability to see what’s happening behind you. We didn’t have them on our trip, but one of the people that we met along the way recommended them, and I sure wish we had been able to find a pair.

Number five, and if you have an EV, you already know this, but plan for the charging stop to be longer than a gas stop, but shorter than you might imagine. So while we were towing, I wasn’t exactly sure of what to expect in terms of our charging time. We had budgeted maybe an hour plus for most of our stops, but usually it only took about 20 to 40 minutes depending on the station and our battery status. So it was just long enough to grab lunch, stretch our legs, grocery shop, etc. And that gave us a chance to actually take a driving break, which is something I’m not great at doing on traditional road trips, so I really appreciated it.

There are so many more lessons that we learned along the way, but I don’t want to spoil all the fun. My main takeaway is that I was surprised and delighted by how easy it was to tow with an EV, and I was surprised that the infrastructure for EV road trips, at least along the corridor that we drove on the West Coast, is so much farther along than I thought. I started the trip a bit skeptical, and I ended it by trying to figure out how I could buy an Airstream. Didn’t see that coming.

All right, this is Aislyn Greene signing off from Unpacked by Afar. If you have not listened to the main episode, the story of how this trip actually went, that link is in the show notes. Happy adventuring.

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This has been Unpacked, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. Production support from Computer City Productions. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit to listen and subscribe to their other fine shows like Culture Kids and The Explorers Podcast.