Top tugs at the 2014 Geneva show

[LizziePope]

Practical Caravan's tow car expert David Motton casts his eye over the next generation tugs revealed at the Geneva Motor Show this week – click here for his blog.

 

[otherclive]

Yes the XXV Discovery looks nice but at £63k is a bit steep. Most of the others are concepts so it will be a while before they hit the streets. One issue that will hit the future tow cars is reducing kerbweight required to help meet emissions targets. This won't help the large number of family motorists who cannot afford a hefty tug. Just look how much VW and Peugeot have taken out of the Golf and 308, well over 100 kg each. If the industry cannot produce lighter vans which attract new buyers they will have to radically rethink the whole process of towing using higher technology solutions. But being able to integrate these into the cars systems will not be simple. Going down such a route might require all caravan makers and chassis specialists to pool resources to lead a joint effort which aims to develop a solution that all may use within their respective caravan designs. But the difficulty of interfacing with a cars dynamics will be considerable especially as each marque does things differently. So perhaps further development of Alkos ATC might be the future as car makers by and large don't see caravans as being a major sales driver.