Why am I on a Tesla thread? Oh right, because a friend of mine is looking into it. We got talking, then I remember Tony has one! And he drove it to Tahoe when we skied together.
No argument there. Towing is a non-starter for current EV's. Just as towing a big trailer might cut gas mileage in half, for an EV it cuts range in half, totally negates Tesla's state of the art aerodynamics of the car alone..
I'm another one-car family who's also a boat owner.
Not all boat and trailers are big. Some of us kayakers use very light trailers carrying one or two 40lb boat. A sub-compact can easily tow that. Can the Tesla do that? I'm sure it could. But unlike gas engine car which just accelerates slower, the margin for range is the bigger concern for electric cars when carrying loads. I'm suspecting it applies to carrying 4 mountain bikes on a hitch rack too.
The "chicken wing" doors notwithstanding, roof rack will hurt aerodynamic pretty badly too. When I put my roof rack on, even without anything on it, it cuts the gas mileage by close to 1/2 mph. The reason being I have a pair of kayak saddle on the rack. They're anything but aerodynamic! (in fact, putting the boat on top improves the aerodynamic despite adding weight, judging from the reduced wind noise. Gas mileage worsen though, by a full 1 mph, likely due to the added weight?) The positioning of the saddles are such I really don't want to take them off too often. Instead, I take the whole darn rack off in the winter. Trailering, according to other owners, reduces gas mileage by almost 2 mph.
For gas/diesel cars, the convention seems to be 500 miles between re-fuels. I have a feeling that's what it'll take for electric cars to actually replace gas cars. Even though we almost never think about the range of our gas-powered cars, that range means we can drive close to 300-400 miles before we even think about where to refuel. The lower number would be for winter time, mountain driving, towing/car-topping or on dirt roads. If there're as many charging station as gas stations, the shorter range of electric cars will be less of an issue.
I resist getting a truck/SUV despite my need for carrying large number of toys on trips. I just don't like to waste energy and create pollution unnecessarily. But while i embrace the IDEA of electric cars, I would have to wait for one of the two issues to be tackled so that electric cars can have a more practical range beyond just local commuting. I can see a family of multiple cars can have one of them as electric though (which is my friend's situation).