This teardrop trailer could be perfect for electric vehicle camping

• 

  Colorado Teardrop Campers has developed a new teardrop trailer specifically for EVs. [credit: Colorado Teardrop Campers ]

I’m a big believer in taking electric vehicles camping. But charging infrastructure in the US is still patchy enough that a week in the wilderness might induce too much range anxiety to be practical. That’s particularly true if your idea of camping involves a trailer rather than a tent; nothing saps an EV’s range quite like towing.

A new camper from Colorado Teardrops might solve this issue. The camper is called the Boulder, after the company’s home base, where it has been building teardrop trailers since 2014. But this one is a bit different from the company’s more conventional teardrop campers.

Usually, towing has a double-whammy effect on EV range, massively increasing drag while adding a lot of extra mass; this combination is often enough to halve an EV’s range on a full charge. The Boulder’s shape has been subjected to computational fluid dynamics simulations to combat the deleterious effects of added wind resistance and ensure that the camper is as low-drag as possible. The company also applied lightweighting to the trailer to get the overall weight down to 1,950 lbs (885 kg).