Shipping an EV works the same way as shipping anything else. It rides on the same trailers, moves on the same routes, and is documented on the same paperwork. What differs is preparation, and it comes down to four things: how much charge is in the pack, whether the car can be loaded without scraping, whether the vehicle's electronics will drain the battery en route, and how the driver is supposed to operate a car with no key.
Get those four right and the shipment is unremarkable.
Battery charge: why the advice contradicts itself
Search this and you will get four different answers. Twenty to thirty percent. Twenty-five to fifty. Thirty to fifty. Twenty to eighty.
None of these is authoritative, and treating any of them as a rule is the wrong approach. The correct charge level for your shipment is set by two parties: the assigned carrier, who has a policy, and your manufacturer, which publishes transport guidance for your specific vehicle. Ask both. An article cannot answer this for you.
What is worth understanding is the reasoning that produces the band, because it tells you which direction to err in if you are between numbers.
The floor exists so the car can move under its own power. The vehicle needs to drive onto the trailer, be repositioned during the trip as other cars are loaded and unloaded, and drive off at the other end. It also needs to support its own electronics for several days. A pack at 5 percent risks a car that will not move when the driver needs it to, on a trailer, in the dark, at a truck stop.
The ceiling exists because a full pack stores maximum energy. Reduced state of charge is standard practice for transporting lithium-ion cells and it is why every published range has an upper bound.
Between those two constraints, most domestic ground carriers land somewhere in the 20 to 50 percent band. Ask yours. If they do not have a policy, that itself tells you something about how much EV experience they have.
Two practical notes. Charge to the agreed level shortly before pickup rather than days ahead, since the pack will drift down while parked. And if your carrier asks for a level and your manufacturer's guidance says something different, raise it with the carrier before pickup rather than deciding unilaterally.
Transport mode and telematics drain
This is the failure point that causes the most surprise, because it happens quietly over several days.
Modern EVs stay partly awake. Sentry Mode on a Tesla runs cameras continuously and will draw meaningful power over a multi-day transit. Always-on connectivity, remote app polling, cabin preconditioning schedules, and alarm systems all contribute. Add a week in transit and a pack that started at 30 percent can arrive considerably lower.
Before pickup:
- Turn off Sentry Mode or its equivalent. It will trigger constantly on a moving trailer anyway, which is both useless and a battery drain.
- Disable scheduled charging and preconditioning. The car will otherwise try to condition itself at 6:00 a.m. on a trailer in Nevada.
- Turn off the alarm if it can be disabled without disabling the immobilizer.
- Enable transport mode if your vehicle has one. Tesla, Rivian, and several other manufacturers provide a transport or service mode designed for exactly this situation. It affects how the vehicle behaves when being moved and loaded. Check your manufacturer's guidance for your model and year, and tell the driver whether the car will be in it.
- Stop remotely checking the car every few hours. Each app query wakes the vehicle.
If your car has a mode specifically intended for transport, use it, and tell the driver how to get the vehicle in and out of it. A driver who cannot move a car on a trailer at 11 p.m. has a real problem.
Ground clearance and loading
Many EVs sit low. Battery packs are floor-mounted, aerodynamics matter more on an EV than on a comparable gas car, and several models have front air dams that clear very little.
The relevant question is what happens at the loading angle. Standard trailer ramps are steep. A vehicle with limited clearance can contact the ramp at the front lower edge, and on an EV the underside is the battery enclosure.
Two things to sort out before booking:
Whether the carrier has a liftgate. A hydraulic liftgate raises the vehicle horizontally instead of driving it up an incline, which removes the clearance problem entirely. This is standard on much enclosed transport equipment and less common on open carriers.
How your air suspension behaves when the car powers down. Several EVs settle to their lowest setting when they sleep. A car that cleared the ramp on the way up may not clear it on the way down. If your vehicle has adjustable ride height, tell the driver, and tell them how to raise it.
Weight and trailer capacity
EVs are heavy. Battery packs add hundreds of pounds over a comparable combustion vehicle, and electric trucks and large SUVs are heavier still.
For you this mostly means one thing: give accurate vehicle details at booking. A carrier building a load is working against a gross weight limit. If they planned for a sedan and receive something 1,200 pounds heavier, the load math changes and the vehicle may be refused. Model, trim, and year are usually enough for a coordinator to get the weight right.
For heavier electric trucks, expect fewer carriers to be able to take the vehicle on a given load, which can extend the wait for dispatch.
Keys, and getting the car to move
Keycards and phone keys create a handoff problem that mechanical keys do not.
Provide a physical key or keycard. Do not rely on a phone key. The driver will need to move the vehicle without your phone present, and pairing a phone to a car they do not own is not a workable plan.
Test it before the driver arrives. Confirm the card or fob actually unlocks and starts the vehicle. Cards demagnetize and backup fobs sit in drawers with dead batteries.
Explain anything non-obvious. Where the card reader is, how to put the car in neutral, how to release the parking brake, how to exit transport mode. Thirty seconds of instruction at pickup prevents a call at midnight.
Deactivate driver profiles that restrict movement. Valet mode or similar features that limit speed or lock the frunk can complicate loading.
Open or enclosed
Both work. An EV is not inherently more fragile in an open trailer than a gas car.
The case for enclosed transport on an EV is the same as on anything else, plus one specific addition: liftgate availability. If your vehicle has limited clearance or air suspension that settles, the liftgate is the reason to go enclosed, more than the walls are.
For a standard EV sedan or crossover with normal ride height, open transport is entirely reasonable and is what most owners use. California in particular has enough EV volume that carriers on California routes handle them routinely.
If your vehicle is a higher-value model, has protective film or a wrap you would rather not have chipped, or sits low enough that ramps are a question, that is when the enclosed conversation becomes worth having. Our dedicated EV and Tesla transport service covers equipment matching for these vehicles.
Equipment matching matters more for EVs than for most vehicles, particularly on clearance and weight. Request a quote with your exact model and route so the right carrier and the right trailer get assigned from the start. ---