Issues when moving to all electric towcars

It's all very quiet ..... shhhhh! 😉

I know one caravanner who, for personal daily use from home,  purchased an EV (car) and has since reverted to a petrol vehicle in order to obtain a decent range in terms of distance, 5 mins for refuelling, thus finding it more convenient in overall usage.

I suspect that the price of decent  2nd hand petrol/diesel tugs will rocket when they are no longer manufactured.

Does anyone want an X-trail in a few years time - let me know?

From what I have read, Hydrogen is very expensive to produce and uses more energy than is required to charge EV's. Until this issue is resolved it would seem that EV's will be in the ascendancy. As EV's gain ground there would have to be a compelling reason to change. Technology always moves on at a pace so it is difficult  predict what the future holds but until hydrogen is cheaper to produce than electricity it faces an uphill struggle.

David

I suspect that as the world changes, the technology will catch up ever faster. Already it's becoming more accepted, I read, that big investment in fossil fuels is increasingly seen as a bad move, so the money will move to greening things. The motivation behind it may not be green, but the money will be there. So like computers that filled a room and could do less than even my non-smart phone, progress will happen.
I'd like to think if can include caravans
On the solar roof, for example, - there is already development of lightweight stick-on PV material. We saw an early example of it at the Machynlleth Alt. Tech centre in Wales around 10 years ago and I gather it's come on by leaps & bounds since then. It's way more efficient now than the 5yr old panels we have on our house roof.
Don't abandon hope, Mr H !

Hedgehurst I wont ever give up. I have been a designer most of my life and have had to put up with negativity and "It'll never work" attitudes.

My real idea is to make the EV batteries removable rather like a DVD used to do. Then you could go into a garage, like you do now and simply replace it with a fully charged one using a forklift principal. The pump would be replaced by a carousal / conveyor belt taking the removed battery underground on a charging rack ie in the space now used for fuel. The recharged batteries would come up and the first available one be placed into the car. This would make the process almost a quick as at present, would stop existing garages going to the wall, and also eliminate the huge cost of the fixed battery replacement, currently, about 7 year lifespan. Not to mention the total infrastructure costs.Those car manufacturers needing more power could have an additional battery accessed on the other side. Varying charging formats could be catered for as we have with diesel and petrol. Obviously, this would mean all batteries would have to be a standard exterior format and the apertures fairly constant. Alignment of the car with the carousel could be using electronic sensing.

However, as we cant even at this stage agree on a standard nozzle design I don't hold out much hope. Can you imagine coming home to your road of terraced houses and someone is in your cherished charging point, and all the cables crossing the pavement? or a half mile long queue at the charging point even if the charging process was just an hour. The whole thing needs to be reviewed by experts from all related areas with a common goal rather than the individualist process at present. I cant get the council to fill a pothole let alone convert a lamp post to multi user charging resource.

And that, Mr H, demonstrates the type of obstacle in the way of constructing a caravan in the manner you described.

I'm not saying it'll never happen but, at present, it's so impractical as to be pie in the sky. 

Tinwheeler who would have thought we could take the original phone and have one now that is more like a computer with no wires. It was a vision. If you believe in an idea it usually can be realised. The development of the Covid vaccine is a good example, when you bring all interested parties together with a common goal. If you had proposed autonomous driving cars you would be laughed at. 

Yes but I refer you to my final sentence.

Surely  the only way your idea is going to work efficiently ,is if all vehicle manufacturers design and adopt a standard type of battery and fixtures which would be available across all type of  EVs vehicle

Yes If you think about standard car design batteries are a common design, the filler cap position is about the same, tyres, lights are made to fit a standard height etc.