Hybrid or PHEV towcar

At the moment I would not even consider either a fully electric or a Hybrid as a towcar..  I'd stick to a decent diesel car for towing in the meantime.  The EU are changing continually changing the rules on emissions and who knows what will be the policy next year or the next again. 

Since there is an emissions a problem in congested cities, the sensible option is to ban diesels from entering cities and leave the rest of the country to continue as it is. This will not affect caravanners or those who enjoy touring. 

K 

 

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what are the French and German systems

Hello. First time poster. No caravan as yet but looking at changing car and have test driven a PHEV. Can I ask what is probably a daft question but if the towing limit on a PHEV is 1500kg, how close can the MTPLM go to that limit (for comfortable driving) and would I find a 6 berth caravan that would be towed by a PHEV.

We won’t be holidaying and I’m not concerned by the poor mpg when towing - we will more than make up for that in the rest of the year. 

Hi, the PHEV kerbweight is 1845kg, so the MTPLM can go right up to the 1500kg and still be around the 85% guideline and therefore comfortable.

Sorry, can't help with suggestions re-6 berth van.

Cheers, Alex.

What PHEV are you referring to? There is more than one on the market! Personally i dont think the manufacturers are yet giving sufficient consideration to towing capabilities with hybrids and PHEVS so will be a long time before one sits in front if my caravan.  And a lot of high mileage drivers are finding petrol PHEV’s are significantly less economical than diesels on long journeys...... Given i tow and cover a high mileage my guess is it will be at least 10 years before used ones are available which i can afford and meets my requirements. 

I used the matching service and chose the 3+, auto.

I'm not sure that there is much difference in kerbweight across the range, well not enough to substantially affect the car/van ratio.

The 3+ is about mid range.

I still do not know which manifacturer you refer to let alone which model...... Volvo, BMW, Peugeot, VW, Toyota......?! 

I towed an 1800kg caravan behind a hybrid Lexus RX400h for several years without a problem. (It's rated at 2000kg max.)

I think Kennine has got it just about right in terms of how an end-user can reasonably expect to deal with the thin end of what I perceive to be a particularly long and heavy wedge.

The finite availability of all global fossil fuels means  that all world governments will be thinking in the long-term towards discouraging private users away from diesel in order to maintain essential service transport e.g. miltary vehicles and bulk food transport.

HMG (UK) are bound to be looking at progressive increases in excise duty on the cost of any privately-owned diesel-engined vehicles as well as the fuel duty.

As a general point, I'm not sure that the UK mobile leisure industry has woken up to the inescapable fact that in the next ten-fifteen years, the demand for caravans and motorhomes will be in sharp decline, along with the dwindling numbers of 'cash-cows' (defined-benefit scheme pensioners, credit-rich millennials etc.) upon whom the industry has been feeding so voraciously.

The capital outlay on electric/hybrid-electric vehicles is bound to be biassed towards the recovery of development costs (as well as cross-funding other activities such as recoverable space flight delivery systems, sideline publicity stunts - launching one's personal Tesla into orbit ... allegedly). It's the consumer that ends up paying for it every time - and just when we think we're ahead of the curve, the technology changes / regulation changes and we end up taking yet another hit in the bank account.

For my part, I have no intention of changing over from my 2.5 litre turbo-diesel (Euro 6-compliant) to petrol or any form of electric/hybrid-electric vehicle. The 'do nothing' option is an entirely valid and reasonable one as far as my mobile leisure activities are  concerned.

Cynical? Moi?