PODCAST

Our Solar Electric Trailer Journey

Follow our journey as we buy a Rivian R1T electric truck to pull a travel trailer equipped to run exclusively on solar power! oursolarelectrictrailer.substack.com

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All Episodes

Replacing the Door Lock on Our Aliner Scout RV

Our Solar Electric Trailer Journey ·

2022/04/15

When we purchased our 2013 Aliner Scout, the sellers didn’t have the keys so we had to replace the lock.The MKing RV Lock we used was a perfect match for the lock on the RV. The lock we replaced showed some evidence of being a replacement, too. For the video above, we recorded the entire process and edited it down to under ten minutes. It took an hour to do it three times.The first time, my efforts worked great except for the quarter-inch gap on the exterior side of the lock.The second time, I put

9:17

What the Recall Replacement Battery in Our Chevy Bolt...

Our Solar Electric Trailer Journey ·

2022/04/08

We got our replacement battery for our Chevy Bolt EV, eliminating the may-self-destruct-at-any-time feature the car came with. This new battery is a big deal, and we’ll explain why below. We also want to update you on the Rivian R1T electric truck we’ve pre-ordered.Thanks, Beaver ChevroletThe folks at Beaver Chevrolet in Jacksonville did a great job with the recall replacement. Chris, who heads the service department, took personal responsibility for us. The dealership provided us with a loaner

9:07

The Everglades Are the Yellowstone of Florida

Our Solar Electric Trailer Journey ·

2022/04/01

Last week, we visited the Everglades National Park and Biscayne Bay National Park hosted by our son Dayton and his wife Kelsey.We’ll report on our trip much as it happened, by day, recapping highlights of the wildlife we observed and what we learned.Day 1 took us into Everglades National Park from the Homestead entrance, about 40 miles south of Miami. The Everglades are a collection of different micro-ecosystems thriving in and near a slow-moving river that occupied much of south Florida. After

5:13

We Weighed Our Bolt and Trailer

Our Solar Electric Trailer Journey ·

2022/03/18

This week, we weighed our little rig on a CAT scale.Taking our little Chevy Bolt EV and the tiny Aliner popup trailer to be weighed on a scale designed for big rigs was a bit of an adventure.We felt like we should get the trailer weighed so we could be confident about safety, to better understand the effect of weight on efficiency and because we were curious.You may recall that we determined after doing lots of research that we would feel comfortable towing 1,600 founds. (If you drive a Bolt, we

Meet Our Aliner Scout

Our Solar Electric Trailer Journey ·

2022/03/11

The video version below includes a demo tour of the trailer that is omitted from the audio podcast above.We did it. We bought a 2013 Aliner Scout, a pop-up trailer with a 1,174-pound dry weight we can tow with our 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV.The trailer was living in Brooksville, Florida, about three hours away from our home in Jacksonville. To give ourselves a full day to get it home, we traveled to the area on the evening of Thursday, March 3, stopping in Bushnell to charge so we’d have plenty of range

12:16

The 12 Tiny Pop-Up Campers We Considered Before...

Our Solar Electric Trailer Journey ·

2022/03/04

As we share this episode, we’re on the other side of Florida looking at an Aliner Scout pop-up trailer. If it checks out, we’ll likely come home with it. We’ll update you on that next week.This week, we’ll give you a quick rundown of the trailers we considered and why we ultimately selected the Aliner Scout.To start, we focused our attention initially on a great article we found on RV Owner HQ featuring ten small pop-up trailers.Opus Op LiteThe heaviest of the bunch was the Opus Op Lite. Ruggedized

7:03

Really Towing With the Chevy Bolt

Our Solar Electric Trailer Journey ·

2022/02/25

We are excited to report that we completed a test tow with our 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV!For the test, we rented a 4x8 Uhaul trailer weighing 850 pounds. We visited Ikea and quickly found 407 pounds of boxes reportedly containing furniture and loaded it in the trailer. The total weight of 1,257 pounds exceeds the dry weight of the Aliner Scout Lite popup trailer we hope to buy. Notably, it is a similar shape and size. In other words, this was a pretty good practice run.All went well. We had no issues

Our Chevy Bolt Has a Trailer Hitch

Our Solar Electric Trailer Journey ·

2022/02/18

We’re getting excited about our solar electric trailer journey now that our Chevy Bolt has a trailer hitch. Before we report on the hitch, let’s recap. We have reserved or pre-ordered not one, not two, but three separate electric trucks. The Tesla Cybertruck was the first but we now expect our Tesla won’t be ready until 2025! Next, we ordered the Rivian R1T hoping it would arrive in 2022. No luck. That won’t arrive until the end of next year. Finally, we’ve reserved a Chevy Silverado EV.