When choosing a family car, it is important that you choose a trailer that is spacious enough, and this is especially true if you are in the habit of going on family vacations with a lot of luggage.
However, what many do not take into account in the calculations is the permitted load weight. If the car’s maximum weight is exceeded, there is a risk that neither the chassis, the tires nor the anti-skid system will perform as designed, while the braking distance can be dangerously long.
In many modern electric cars and plug-in hybrids, you are allowed to load unexpectedly little, and if you go over the maximum load, you can be fined. We Car Owners have compiled which popular models to look out for.
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Tricky with load weight
The permissible load weight is the difference between the car’s curb weight – which is the car’s weight including liquids such as fuel and oil, as well as a driver of 75 kilograms – and the car’s maximum permissible total weight.
That small cars such as the Toyota Aygo, Kia Picanto or Volkswagen Up are not allowed to load very much is perhaps not unexpected. It is trickier with many large and spacious electric cars and plug-in hybrids, whose large batteries eat up a lot of the cargo weight.
We Car owners note that a reader has been fined for driving with an overload in his Volkswagen Passat GTE plug-in hybrid. If you drive an electric car or plug-in hybrid, you are therefore right to check how heavy you can load before you pack for the mountain holiday.
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Popular electric cars with low payload
Examples of family-sized electric cars that can load unexpectedly little are the Nissan Ariya, Skoda Enyaq, Audi Q4 and Volvo C40, all of which have a maximum load weight of under 400 kilograms.
The Skoda Superb – which is a sister car to the Volkswagen Passat – can load a full 640 kilograms as a diesel, but only 442 kilograms as a plug-in hybrid.
Even Volvo’s popular plug-in hybrids V60 T6 Recharge and V90 T6 Recharge have a ridiculously low load weight. The larger V90 is the worst of these, and can only load 379 kilos.
The worst are the Nissan Leaf and the Hyundai Ioniq Electric, which are not even allowed to load 300 kilos.
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Watch out for Tesla
Tesla has recently increased the permissible cargo weight on the popular Model 3 and Model Y, but if you look at the models on the used market, you have to be careful.
The permitted load weight for some versions is only 315 kilos for the Tesla Model Y, while some versions of the Tesla Model 3 are only allowed to load 309 kroner.
The Tesla Model Y in particular has plenty of room for packing, and is thus easy to accidentally load too heavily.
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