Towing a Teardrop Camper With an EV: The Complete Australian Guide

Electric vehicles have gone from novelty to normal on Australian roads. EVs now make up close to one in ten new car sales, and a growing share of those are the mid-size and large electric SUVs — Tesla Model Y, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6 and EV9, BYD's line-up — that people actually want to take camping. Which raises the question we get asked more than almost any other: can you really tow a camper with an EV, and will you spend the whole trip hunting for a charger?

The honest answer is yes, you can — and a lightweight teardrop is arguably the best-matched trailer an EV can pull. But the internet is full of hand-wavy takes on this, so this guide does the opposite. We'll give you real braked tow ratings for the EVs Australians actually buy, the one weight figure most first-time towers get wrong, an honest read on how much range you lose, the awkward truth about DC fast-charging with a trailer hooked up, and exactly how a Hip teardrop's numbers stack up. No spin — just what you need to plan a trip that works.

Can you tow with an EV? The honest short version

Yes — provided your EV is rated for towing and you stay inside its limits. Not every electric car sold here has a tow rating (some are delivered with no factory tow bar at all), but the models most likely to be bought as a family SUV generally are. A modern electric SUV pulling a light, aerodynamic trailer is a genuinely good touring setup: instant torque makes hills and take-offs effortless, the low centre of gravity from a floor-mounted battery keeps the rig planted, and running costs are lower than diesel.

The trade-offs are equally real, and we'll cover them properly below: you lose range while towing, long-distance trips need charging planning, and fast-charge stops are more fiddly with a trailer attached. None of these are deal-breakers — they're just things to design your trip around. The lighter and slipperier your trailer, the smaller every one of those trade-offs becomes, which is exactly why teardrops and EVs pair so well. If you're still weighing a trailer against a fixed camper, our comparisons of a teardrop versus a caravan and a teardrop versus a campervan are a useful companion read.

Match the tow rating to the teardrop's ATM, not its tare

This is the single most important thing on the page, and it's where most first-time towers slip up. You'll see a teardrop advertised at "700 kg" and assume any EV rated to tow 750 kg or more will handle it. That's the tare — the empty weight of the trailer as it leaves us. It is not the number your tow vehicle has to cover.

The figure that matters is the ATM (Aggregate Trailer Mass): the maximum the trailer is legally allowed to weigh fully loaded, with water in the tank and gear in the boot. Both the Hip Summit and Hip Companion have an ATM of 1,500 kg. Your EV's braked towing capacity must be at least your trailer's actual loaded weight, and sizing to the full ATM with a bit of margin is the safe way to do it. A car rated at 750 kg braked can legally tow the empty trailer, but load it up and you're over the limit.

In practice, very few people load a teardrop all the way to its 1,500 kg ceiling — that would mean adding the full 750–800 kg of payload. A realistic loaded weight for a weekend away might be 950–1,150 kg. But you should still size your tow vehicle to comfortably clear your actual loaded weight with margin to spare, not to the empty tare. Two more numbers to check on your EV: the tow-ball download limit (the weight the coupling presses down on the car, which eats into your payload) and the GCM/GVM so the car plus its passengers and the ball weight stay legal. Because a teardrop is genuinely light and the brakes are standard, this is rarely a problem — a full breakdown of every figure lives in what's included on the Summit and Companion, and the legal side of trailer brakes is covered in our guide to electric brakes on camper trailers.

Which EVs can tow a teardrop in Australia?

Plenty of them — but the spread of braked tow ratings is wider than you'd expect, from 750 kg to 2,500 kg. Below is a snapshot of popular electric SUVs and cars sold in Australia and their braked towing capacity, compared against a Hip teardrop's 1,500 kg ATM. Treat these as a starting point: tow ratings change between variants, battery sizes and model years, so always confirm the exact figure for your car on its compliance plate, owner's manual or the manufacturer's tow-package specs before you buy or hitch up.

A few things jump out of that table, and they're exactly the details a glossy "EVs can tow!" article skips over:

• Variant matters enormously. The Kia EV5 is the clearest example: the Long Range is rated around 1,250 kg braked, while the Standard Range is roughly 300 kg — effectively not a tow car. Same badge, wildly different capability.
• Small EVs are for small trailers. A BYD Atto 3 at 750 kg braked can drag a bare teardrop around, but it leaves nothing for water and gear. It suits a light pod or a very stripped-back setup, not a fully-provisioned tour.
• Some popular EVs aren't tow cars at all. The Tesla Model 3 isn't sold with a factory tow package in Australia, so it doesn't get a rating — don't assume "Tesla" means "can tow."
• 1,500 kg-rated cars have zero headroom at full ATM. An Ioniq 6, Polestar 2 or electric XC40 rated at exactly 1,500 kg can legally tow a Hip only if you never load it past that figure. Very doable on a teardrop — just pack sensibly and know your loaded weight.

How much range do you actually lose towing?

Expect to lose roughly 30–40% of your normal range towing a lightweight teardrop at highway speed. That's meaningfully better than a big caravan, which can cost you 50–60% or more, and it comes down to three levers: weight, aerodynamics and speed. The table below gives a realistic feel for how those stack up on a mid-size electric SUV with, say, ~500 km of rated range.

Weight

Every kilogram the car has to accelerate and haul uphill uses energy. A loaded teardrop adds far less mass than a caravan, and regenerative braking claws some of it back on descents and into towns — something a diesel simply can't do. Keeping the trailer light is the easiest efficiency win you have, which is a good reason to read our teardrop camping checklist and pack with discipline.

Aerodynamics

This is where teardrops genuinely shine. At highway speed, pushing air out of the way is the dominant energy cost of towing, and a teardrop's curved, low, tapering shape slips through it far better than a flat-fronted, slab-sided caravan. That aerodynamic advantage is the biggest single reason a teardrop costs an EV so much less range than a box trailer of similar weight — and why the range gap between "teardrop" and "caravan" in the table above is so wide.

Speed

Aerodynamic drag rises with the square of speed, so small speed changes have an outsized effect. Backing off from 110 to 90–95 km/h can recover 15–20% of your towing range — often the difference between one charging stop and two on a given leg. Most experienced EV towers settle around 90–95 km/h as the sweet spot: quick enough to make good time, slow enough to keep range (and stress) in check. Cold weather and running the cabin heater hard will also trim range, so factor in a buffer in winter — see our notes on winter camping in a teardrop.

Why a teardrop is the best-matched trailer for an EV

If you were designing a trailer specifically to minimise an EV's biggest weaknesses, you'd end up with something close to a teardrop. The two problems that hurt EV towing most are weight and drag — and a teardrop is light and slippery by design. A caravan attacks both weaknesses at once: it's heavy and it's a brick in the airflow. A teardrop does the opposite.

There's also a practical, off-grid alignment that makes the pairing even better. EV campers tend to want to reach quiet, unpowered spots, and a well-specced teardrop is built to camp without mains power — which we'll come back to below. And there's a values fit: the same buyer who chose an electric car for its efficiency and lower running costs tends to appreciate a compact, self-sufficient camper over a three-tonne palace. If you're still deciding whether the whole teardrop approach suits you, our honest take on whether a teardrop camper is worth it and our roundup of the best teardrop campers in Australia are good next reads, alongside how the Hip Summit compares to generic teardrops.

Charging on the road with a trailer attached: the reality

Here's the part most "EV towing" articles quietly skip: charging with a trailer still hitched is the single most annoying part of the whole exercise, and it's worth planning around rather than being surprised by. The Australian fast-charging network has grown enormously — Tesla Superchargers are open to other brands at many sites, and Chargefox, Evie and BP Pulse have filled in the highways — but most charging bays were laid out for a lone car, not a car plus a 4–5 metre trailer.

The practical playbook that makes this painless:

• Assume you may need to unhitch at DC chargers. A teardrop is light enough to unhitch and manoeuvre by hand, which is a real advantage over a heavy van. Scope the bay layout as you pull in; if there's a pull-through or an end bay, use it and stay hitched.
• Charge during meal and coffee stops. A 30-minute fast charge over lunch adds 150–200 km of towing range. Line up your stops with the times you'd be stopping anyway and the "downtime" mostly disappears.
• Lean on overnight AC charging. The neatest solution to the whole trailer-at-the-charger problem is to barely use DC chargers at all: roll into a powered site, plug into a 15A outlet or a destination charger, and wake up topped up. This is where towing an EV and camping actually complement each other.
• Plan with a trailer-aware app. A Better Route Planner (ABRP) lets you add trailer weight and extra drag so its range estimates and charging stops reflect reality, not your car's optimistic dash figure.
• Keep a buffer. Don't run below ~10–15% while towing; hills, headwinds and detours all bite harder with a trailer on the back.

Planning an EV towing trip, step by step

Good planning turns EV towing from nerve-wracking to routine. On major and popular regional routes it's genuinely easy now; remote and outback travel still needs more care (more on that below). A simple pre-trip routine:

1. Know your real towing range. Do one shakedown leg with the trailer loaded and note your actual consumption. That number, not the brochure, is what you plan around.
2. Map chargers before you go. Use ABRP or PlugShare with trailer weight added, and identify a backup charger near each planned stop in case one's busy or offline.
3. Prefer trailer-friendly stops. Note which chargers on your route are pull-through or end-of-row, and which parks offer overnight AC charging.
4. Leave home at 100%. Overnight home charging is your cheapest, easiest kilometres — start every trip full.
5. Build in a weather buffer. Headwinds, heat, cold and hills all cut range. Add margin rather than arriving on 3%.
6. Split long days. Two relaxed 250–300 km legs with a proper charge and a meal between them beats one white-knuckle dash.

The off-grid advantage: your camper carries its own power

One of the quieter benefits of pairing an EV with a well-equipped teardrop is that the two systems are completely separate. Your car runs on its traction battery and charges at the wall or a DC charger. Your camper runs its own 12V world — and towing it never draws down the car's driving range once you've parked up.

Both the Hip Summit and Hip Companion come standard with a genuine off-grid setup: 100W of solar, a 120Ah LiFePO4 battery, a 2,000W inverter, and an 80L fresh-water tank with instant hot water, feeding the lights, fridge, water pump, USB and 240V outlets. That means you can post up at a free or low-cost bush site with no mains power — no powered-site fee, no hookup — and the trailer looks after itself. To go deeper on how that system is sized and why lithium is the standard, see our teardrop power systems guide, our breakdown of how much solar a camper trailer needs, and why we run LiFePO4 rather than AGM. The broader off-grid picture — power, water and staying self-sufficient — is covered in off-grid camping: solar, water and power and what it takes to run a self-contained teardrop.

The upshot is a low-impact, low-cost travel loop: charge the car at a fast charger or a regional AC point on the way, and let the camper's solar and battery run your campsite off the sun once you're there. Cooking is done on your own portable cooker (there's no built-in cooktop; a gas-bottle holder for your own bottle is a standard fitting), so the galley setup is entirely up to you.

EV towing tips that actually move the needle

1. Go light. Weight costs an EV more than a diesel, and it's the one variable fully in your control. Pack smart, carry water only where you'll need it, and resist the urge to fill every locker.
2. Slow down. Dropping from 110 to 90–95 km/h can add 15–20% to your towing range, and it's calmer to drive with a trailer anyway.
3. Pre-condition the battery. Warming the traction battery before a DC session (many EVs do this automatically when you navigate to a charger) gives you faster charging and shorter stops.
4. Check tyre pressures — car and trailer. Correct pressures cut rolling resistance and directly improve efficiency and tyre life.
5. Use regen on descents. Let the car recover energy coming down hills and into towns; over a hilly day it meaningfully extends range.
6. Keep the trailer clean in the airflow. Don't strap bulky gear to the roof or nose of the teardrop — the aerodynamic shape is doing real work, so don't spoil it.
7. Fit a proportional brake controller. Smooth, well-set trailer brakes make the whole rig calmer and safer; we cover the options in the electric brakes guide.

Honest caveats: where EV towing still asks more of you

We'd rather you buy with clear eyes, so here's the flip side. EV towing is easy on major routes and increasingly fine on popular regional ones, but it isn't the right tool for every trip — at least not yet.

• Remote and outback touring is still the frontier. Long, charger-sparse stretches — deep outback, remote WA and NT tracks — demand serious planning and, sometimes, simply aren't practical in a current EV. If your dream is the Gibb River Road or the Tanami, a diesel is still the pragmatic tow vehicle today.
• Tow rating margin is non-negotiable. As the table showed, a 1,500 kg-rated EV has no headroom at a Hip's full ATM. Stay within your car's braked capacity and tow-ball limit — being "a bit over" is both unsafe and uninsured.
• Cold and wind take a bite. Winter range and strong headwinds can push your loss past the friendly 30–40% figure. Plan conservatively when conditions are against you.
• Charging stops take real time. Even done well, you'll spend more time stopped than a diesel would. If that grates, it's better to know before you commit than halfway up the Hume.

For most weekend-and-holiday touring on the east coast and popular regional routes, none of these are dealbreakers — they're just the trade you make for lower running costs and a quieter, torquier drive. If you want to sanity-check the whole-of-life numbers, our guide to the cost of owning a camper trailer in Australia puts fuel-versus-charging in the context of everything else, and our state guides to off-grid touring in Queensland and Western Australia flag where charging gets sparse.

Hip Summit & Companion: built light for the EV era

Both of our models were designed to be towed easily, and that turns out to be exactly what an EV wants. Here's why they suit electric tow vehicles so well:

• Light where it counts. 700–750 kg tare and a 1,500 kg ATM, so they sit inside the braked rating of most mid-size and large electric SUVs — not just big 4WDs.
• Aerodynamic by shape. The classic teardrop profile is one of the best trailer shapes for minimising an EV's range loss at highway speed.
• Genuinely off-grid. 100W solar, 120Ah LiFePO4, a 2,000W inverter and 80L of water with instant hot water — the camper powers its own campsite, independent of the car.
• Brakes and chassis sorted as standard. Electric brakes and a hot-dip galvanised chassis come standard, on a 50 mm ball that fits a normal tow bar.
• Road-legal, the boring-but-important bit. Each unit is finished and inspected in Melbourne and certified for Australian roads through the RAV (ROVER) process; you register it in your own state. That compliance is what keeps you legal and insured when you tow.

The Summit sleeps two adults plus a child under its skylight; the Companion sleeps two with a side window. Custom builds through our 3D configurator start at $18,000 (Companion) and $19,000 (Summit), while fully-equipped standard units are $21,500 and $22,500. Every build is backed by a 24-month structural warranty and 12 months on fittings and components, with free interstate delivery to a depot near you. You can see what's ready to go in current stock, dig into the full inclusions on the Hip Summit and Hip Companion pages, or check the FAQ for the weights and delivery detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

Next step

Towing a teardrop with an EV isn't just possible — for a lot of Australian trips it's a genuinely great setup, as long as you size the car to the trailer's real weight and plan your charging. A light, aerodynamic, off-grid teardrop is about the friendliest thing you can hitch to an electric SUV.

Want to check whether a Hip teardrop suits your specific EV? Get in touch with your vehicle and variant and we'll talk through the tow rating, ball weight and setup. You can also see what's in current stock, or build your own in 3D to spec a Summit or Companion exactly the way you'd tow it.