Weight Distribution and Sway Control -Obsolete for a Self Propelled Trailers?

[Holdmybeer]

TrekDrive would have zero effect on the static hitch weight of the Lightship. Furthermore, even if TrekDrive had some relevance as to whether or not a WDH and sway bar were necessary, which is unlikely, what about those days when TrekDrive is off?

 

[Rory (Lightship Team)]

To be clear here, on-road and in-camp safety is the number one priority for Lightship. Followed closely by the health of our customers when using the product (it's why we use no wood in the product!)

It is always best to follow the recommendation of the tow vehicle manufacturer in using weight distribution and sway control devices.

But, we do think that the low center of gravity and low aerodynamic profile of the lightship make it particularly stable on the road, trekdrive on or off. We have also done extensive dynamics simulations and testing to make sure that customers feel safe when towing.

Would welcome anyone here to swing by our factory in Colorado and we'll show you how we build it and give you a test drive!

 

[turbopilot]

I am amazed at the number of self nominated experts who show up on Internet forums to pontificate about the subject of proper application of weight distribution hitches.

Obviously, a few contributors to this thread have not read all the facts in context. Last April I had the chance to pull a prototype Lightship with my F-150 PowerBoost. That 3 hours of driving was done with two Lightship employees on board, one of them an engineer monitoring the Lightship via a tablet to the LightShip telematics system.

We made the trip without a weight distribution hitch because we were interested to see how it would perform without a WDH. Also at that stage of testing LightShip was finding that not all weight distribution hitches were compatible with the LightShip force sensors in the hitch. I posted my experience with that test drive and posted my thoughts about the application of WDH's with the low profile, electric propulsion systems of this unique towable.

But for the customer who purchases a Lightship today every rig comes with a Curt 17052 WDH as standard equipment and the suggestion to use it. This hitch as been tested to assure compatibility with the TrekDrive hitch mounted force sensors.

So for all you "Dudes" who post before reading the facts, take some time to understand the context. More importantly understand the LightShip represents new to the world technology that may have some features which appear to defy conventional wisdom of the established towable RV crowd.