Comment by brightball
1 day ago
After Helene knocked out power in parts of my area for a little over 14 days, I found out that a friend of ours used his cybertruck to power his house through the entire mess. He'd run the house on it for a couple of days, then drive the cybertruck over to a super charger station, recharge, then come home and plug the house back in.
The battery capacity on those things is equivalent to 9 Tesla Powerwall units or something close to it.
They may be ugly, but the emergency prepper in me always wanted one after hearing that story. Before, I always wanted to install powerwalls...but I never considered in an extended event being able to drive my powerwalls somewhere to recharge them.
This seems like an awfully niche case, no? How often does someone lose power at home for days, while also having a nearby and accessible charging station that stays functional the whole time? Most of the disasters I'm aware of people either get their power back in a short enough amount of time that they can use a normal generator for the gap, or things are bad and widespread enough that they aren't driving down the street to recharge their vehicle.
Also very important: the cybertruck is not the only vehicle capable of doing that (the keywords are V2H and V2L, V2H is the more convenient — the car just plugs into the mains and acts as a house battery — while V2L means you have to go and plug your stuff to the car's mains outputs directly)
> Most of the disasters I'm aware of people either get their power back in a short enough amount of time that they can use a normal generator for the gap
TBF an EV car has an absolutely massive battery relative to the electric consumption of a house, unless you're using resistive heating all around. Especially if you ration use.
Here's Alex from Technology Connections testing powering things in his house from his Hyundai Ioniq 5.
https://youtu.be/yO5fJ8z66Z8
7 replies →
We have a heat pump with SOCP 5, but are still using 30kWh per day now.
16 replies →
As soon as the Rivian has v2h I will buy
The value of a used 24 KWh battery used in, say, an old EV non-tesla car - $2000 (note this still has plenty of life left). Example: a 2013 Nissan Leaf
The value of the same, repurposed to a "powerwall" - $10k per 10 KWh
The value of it once attached to a "movable powerwall" - :) add a few more zeros
Clearly, I am in the wrong business...
7 replies →
Most people (like me) don't have generators. But when I hear "oh, BTW this car can be a used as a generator for 48-72 hours in a power outage", that's a nice little selling point that might put me over the edge if i'm otherwise considering the car. No, this doesn't solve for Hurricane Katrina. But it does solve for a nor'easter.
My car is basically one big gas-powered generator that has the benefit of also not requiring a functional power station to refill itself.
It has other downsides, obviously. But the notion of "emergency power for your house" isn't really anything special.
50 replies →
This is exactly what I do. My cabin is in a rural area that gets a lot of power outages, and it also happens to be < 10 min away from a supercharger. When I was getting quotes for a home battery backup system, every other option was astronomically more expensive than the cybertruck. I don’t know why adding wheels to the battery pack makes it a lot less expensive but I’m not complaining. It’s good to have an extra vehicle I can use in the event of an emergency as well.
First, 'nearby' can be a 1 hr drive and still be worth it to commute every few days. Second, tornadoes, storms, and floods have exactly that pattern where damage can be block by block.
But it is still cheaper to stockpile some generators and gas than stockpile a cybertruck. If there's an EV charging station up within a 1 hr drive, gas stations are also going to be up.
Even if you can’t easily recharge, it’s a great way to power your home for a few days. It’s arguably a very cost-efficient home backup solution, assuming you were already in the market for an EV.
A Cybertruck has nearly 10x the battery capacity of a single Powerwall, and to buy that much Powerwall capacity would cost at least as much as a Cybertruck. Even a Tesla Model 3 (which now supports home backup) is over 5x Powerwalls.
You still have to pay to install home backup support on your home’s breaker (at least $10k), but you don’t need anywhere near the amount of very expensive supplemental home batteries.
Also, even an EV with a 120V outlet and no home backup support could be very useful for recharging a portable battery bank.
> You still have to pay to install home backup support on your home’s breaker (at least $10k),
$10,000 to install a socket, a breaker, and a transfer switch?
Surely not.
5 replies →
Some one mentioned something similar about their Ford Lightning in a previous thread. If a whole truck with batteries cost less than the same bare batteries then people buying powerwalls are getting absolutely screwed.
5 replies →
During a “power cut” there is usually reduced capacity on the grid, not zero capacity. They typically cut power to homes while keeping power on for business. The homes get power on a rolling blackout, so they have power for a few hours per day.
I expect that the charging station will be in an industrial park with an industrial power supply.
The opposite usually happens. Homes are protected by cutting power to industrial customers who bulk purchase power at a discounted rate.
The option to cut power are negotiated into the service contracts.
For instance an aluminum smelter may need a certain amount of notice to shut down their machinery, so they may negotiate an hour of notice or whatever they need. The power company may have to briefly load shed residential while still in the notice period, but then they take the smelter offline and restore service.
I find it highly likely that high consumption electric car fast charging site would negotiate to be the first in line to have their power cut given they don't have any equipment that could be damaged and they'd be most interested in discounted power.
1 reply →
Power outages at least where the live are a fairly common occurrence (overhead local power lines get taken out by trees if there is a big blow), power is usually restored in 1-48hrs. A lot of people have backups (generators or batteries) but those are fairly expensive when you amortize them against cost / hour of outage. Having that backup up power available at no incremental cost is pretty nice to have.
This is one of those things that happens in rural areas, "the city" (which is not actually a city in any sense but the legal one) gets power on in a day or so but your neighborhood 10 miles away doesn't get power for another week because the population density is something like 50/sq mile at most. And that's just for the people in actual neighborhoods, if you're on a farm or something where the nearest neighbor is a mile down the highway I don't even know how long it takes them to fix your power lines.
I grew up in the country, just not far from a town of 2000, but had friends who were more remote, and my power is, well not exactly less reliable now that I’m in the city, but not necessarily better. They would have power to my house or my friends house back pretty quick. Longest I remember was maybe 4 hours. We’ve had 36 hour outages in the city (more than half a million people). I do think we had more outages in the country, but never very long. Structure of the distribution network? Ease of accessing the lines?
1 reply →
In about 25 years, I've twice been out twice for multiple days and one of those was in summer which was a nuisance rather than a potential really serious problem. (Worst case, I buy ice for coolers and maybe need to toss some food.) But I live just off a (major) country road so I'm probably pretty high on the power restoration schedule.
The whole point of prepping is to prepare for the unlikely events though.
If you can choose between a truck that can’t power your house and a truck that can, prepper mentality is to choose the one that can.
With unlimited money, sure, but your typical prepper would be able to fund a decent portable gas generator and jerry cans (or even a natural gas line) without a need for financing.
1 reply →
Why does the prepper assume there will be electricity to charge his car?
21 replies →
If you can choose between a truck that becomes a dead weight when the nearby power plant comes offline, and a truck that won't, the prepper mentality is to choose the latter.
Take it from a Ukrainian.
PS: my dual-fuel gasoline/LPG Renault Twingo in Poland will outrun any Cybertruck on the continent.
And, unlike electricity, you can stockpile gasoline.
9 replies →
That sort of thing happens all the time. All it takes is, say, a big fallen tree in the wrong spot. Its entirely possible for just your road to be SOL for days, if the local utility is otherwise completely swamped by bigger issues from whatever disaster is going on.
Also you can get that charging station fitted to your house aka solar panels. I've been "off grid" I.e. no import for weeks
We've got the batteries attached to our house instead of our car, but I have to admit that having it in my car instead of paying to have more attached to my house (we want more) is a really, really tempting option.
In places like Florida its absolutely something that would not be considered niche.
Greetings from Northern California! Multi-day power outages are not at all uncommon (though I've never seen 14 days). We had one about a month ago. Most people just have generators, but if you wanted to use a Cybertruck instead, the nearest superchargers are one hour away and do not go offline when we lose power.
I suspect an hour's drive is getting close to the point where the supercharger solution gets frustratingly annoying. You have to budget 1/3 of your energy just to the round trip, which will take you at least 4 hours for a complete fill, and may only get you 2 days of power.
But it's not bad to ride out the first couple of days if you've got 120kWh just sitting in your garage.
Not niche at all. Loss of power for days is common in areas of strong storms with above ground power lines. States frequented by hurricanes and strong storms can experience days to weeks without power.
Ford has also marketed their hybrid F150 as being able to power home appliances for several years.
I live off grid in Sweden all year round with solar and an EV as battery to power everything except heating which I do with wood from my own property.
I'd have animals too but society is still stable enough to provide me with food.
Living in Ukraine, I can tell you it's not niche here. Most homeowners without power walls already consider buying an EV because you also get to drive it to an area that has electricity at the time.
Preppers are just about as niche as you can get; they're still a valid customer prototype! I'm sure more than a few solar home owners chose it as a PowerWall.
At 6000lbs+ it's a section 179 write off; if you combine that with some of the previous incentives the car was not that expensive to the right population.
> This seems like an awfully niche case, no?
Not really. Some areas in California have multiple PSPS outages during fire season. Many people have gotten gas generators or powerwalls to deal with it, but using your EV would be ideal.
Why would that be ideal? I would be worried constantly about if I'm trading electricity in my house for the ability to go somewhere in an emergency. If it's such a real concern you even think about it when buying a car you should have a dedicated device.
Generators have solved this problem. My family used to lose electricity anytime there was a semi serious snow storm. We got a gasoline generator after the second time and it was always sufficient. We never needed to siphon gas from the car either. We later transitioned to a natural gas generator. The lines are all underground and tie into the existing system for the stove and dryer. No car involved.
3 replies →
If you're already committed to owning a bigass $100K electric truck this is an inarguably awesome side benefit. It's a truck, so... you have a few hundred miles of range. Slightly better than "down the street."
But for the other 99.99% of humanity, there are certainly more cost-effective ways. A portable power station and solar panels are probably the better move unless you have some really massive power needs.
(Admittedly, a nuclear winter reduces the effectiveness of those solar panels somewhat)
> But for the other 99.99% of humanity, there are certainly more cost-effective ways.
Are you telling us that you are not planning to buy Tesla Roadster? But what about the situation when there will be huge snow storm and humongous tree will fall across the road, and you will be like really hungry and you could just to fly over it and not starve to death?
Actually, if my car worked as a whole-house UPS and base smart battery (charging at night when power is cheap, drawing during day when it's expensive), that's a pretty nice value-add for a vehicle purchase.
Doesn't make sense for what they are charging for it. But still!
Yeah... even powerwalls and equivalent don't seem to be a good just-in-case solution. A gas generator costs 5% for the same capacity, and you can just go get some extra gas when the storm comes. I'm all for electrification, but after doing the math, it doesn't work for this particular corner case.
I think a powerwall or similar only makes sense with solar, but an EV can be a nice emergency supply for little extra cost as long as you don’t need it often.
Other commenters are pointing out places where it isn’t that niche, but I just want to call out that there’s a whole cottage industry for preppers that would eat this up. I would consider a 30-pound bucket full of shelf-stable Mac and cheese “pretty niche,” but it flew off the shelves at Costco.
I'm not sure it is. I've considered getting home batteries for power outages (due to fires), and frankly given the install cost, using a car is compelling. Not only do they have enormous batteries (a model 3 has a 57.5 kwh battery and can be acquired for 20k), but they can be driven to recharge every few days if need be.
Where I'm located, in most cases when there is an outage, neighboring areas do have power.
Specifically for my model 3, I've been considering tapping into the HV system manually to keep my Ecoflow battery topped up, but I wish there was a way to directly connect it.
>This seems like an awfully niche case, no?
No. It's like a generator except way more power and mobile. Rechargable via solar. So basically just a much better generator.
[flagged]
Also an american only case. But anyway trucks are not popular elsewhere, little sense to buy it
Well, with climate change and weather getting more extreme, it might happen more often...
pretty standard in honolulu actually. i lose power for 1-3 days on the regular, have to drive to town to do anything
I've got a friend who does it simply to fuck PG&E and avoid an electric bill. He has workplace charging, a Cybertruck, and a powerwall + Tesla solar setup at home. He drives his truck to work, fills up on electricity, drives it home at the end of the day, and uses it to power his house. Repeat the next day. The Cybertruck was cheaper than the 13 PowerWalls or whatever that's the equivalent battery capacity.
PG&E is still getting paid, he's just stealing from his employer to do it instead of paying directly
3 replies →
Actually no, and in fact almost all EVs are capable of powering a house for quite a while. It would be excellent if this was not just a Cybertruck-exclusive feature since here in the bay area we have shitty infrastructure too and power outages happen several times per winter.
I saw it happen during Katrina. Neighborhoods within an easy drive of each other where one had power, and the other not. Not to mention the fact that vehicle charging stations may well be prioritized to restore power.
It’s niche just because natural disasters are thankfully relatively rare, but I still think having good contingencies is worth it.
Fuck being seen in a cybertruck though.
> Not to mention the fact that vehicle charging stations may well be prioritized to restore power
Electric vehicles won't, ever, be prioritized over bringing up residential, commercial and emergency services. The fact that even on a super charger it's 20+ minutes to charge a Cybertruck means the two or three at the local gas station will just end up with 12+ hour lines. Even now generators are fueled before private vehicles.
Bringing up power after disasters is super dangerous as is. A lot of systems that hadn't been turned off in years do a cold start, and sparks fly. It's why the power company and fire departments coordinate very very closely on grid work.
You know someone's going to try and bypass any safeties and circuit breakers and end up taking down their house when they try to restore power after a flood or something. People already regularly die from running their generator in the garage and most of these aren't wired directly into house mains.
1 reply →
My silicon valley neighborhood lost power for two days in 2025 starting on Christmas day.
In what universe is backup power a niche use case?
Ice storms in the Midwest can knock power out for several days in rural areas. Urban areas usually get brought back online sooner than the rural areas. A few years ago a bad one knocked out power at a friend’s house for three weeks.
Niche until it’s life/death unfortunately.
Not uncommon in parts of California where certain legs of the grid are shut down for high wind events. If you live in Pacifica, you might have your power out for 3 to 5 days, but there will be reliable power in San Francisco 20 minutes away.
An awful lot Elon’s products seem uniquely capable in extreme niche cases primarily caused by America‘s horrendous track record of maintaining, upgrading, and filling in traditional infrastructure.
Two observations with complaining about America's infrastructure:
1. America is huge. Comparing it to places in Europe is like comparing it to New Hampshire.
2. American has imported tons of people who are incapable of sustaining a high standard of living on their own. It only takes a few percent shift in GDP/person to change how much infrastructure you can build and maintain unless you are truly willing to let all the folks with less than a high school education and no special job skills live in favelas.
9 replies →
Even outside of natural disasters, it's a very useful feature for people in the construction business and similar fields where mains power might not be always available.
Thin line between gimmick and very useful considering powerful worksite gas generators exist for less than $5k
[dead]
Another way to view this is that driving a cybertruck every day is quite wasteful (no different than driving a full size gas pickup every day). One recharge cycle in a cybertruck uses enough energy to power a typical home for 8 days, 130kWh. If you aren’t doing truck things with it, it’s better to drive a more efficient EV or hybrid car. It uses almost twice as much Wh per mile compared to a model Y.
I think this is why these EV trucks don’t do well (ford also cancelled the F150 lightning). For truck things, they aren’t particularly capable (you’d get less than 100 miles towing). For daily driving duty, a car or small suv is much more efficient. You can power your home during a storm from most EVs these days, you’d just have to top it up more often
Cybertruck uses like a fifth of the energy of a full size gas pickup truck and is only like 50% more than a typical smaller sized EV. The truth is that most homes don't use much energy apart from hvac. The Chevy Bolt can also power a home for several days if you only have the fridge and lights running.
> Cybertruck uses like a fifth of the energy of a full size gas pickup truck
Yes, but the energy density of the energy storage mechanism in the cybertruck is substantially lower than a gas pickup truck
14 replies →
Driving is wasteful. Cybertrucks and Prius's use similar amounts of energy per mile. Cybertruck is 0.4-0.5 kWh/mile, the Prius is 0.6-0.7 kWh/mile.
Of course the Prius Prime on electricity is way more efficient than both, but it still uses a lot more energy than a house.
European units (`Energy/100km`) work nicely here, lots of EVs are around `20 kWh/100km`, and most residential housing around here consumes less than `20kWh/day`, actually averaging `20kWh/day` would probably cover a well insulated house including heating (heatpump).
Yes, driving, compared to living, uses ridiculous amounts of energy.
11 replies →
For comparison my cargo ebike, which is not particularly efficient, consumes about 30 Wh/mi (0.03kWh/mi) in medium assist while transporting an adult and two kids.
10 replies →
Are those numbers right? 0.4 kWh/mile is 24.85 kWh/100km compared to about 14 kWh/100km my Kia Niro EV uses.
1 reply →
Driving is not wasteful. Energy is not a scarce thing in the universe.
Using energy is not bad. Creating excess carbon emissions is bad.
We need to be able to hold two ideas in our heads instead of blindly repeating trendy religious dogma.
Driving uses a lot of energy. It's wasteful if you aren't getting a good use out of it (of which just driving around to relax could me considered a good use, but of which some manager requiring RTO might not be).
>For daily driving duty, a car or small suv is much more efficient.
I have a lightning and it averages 0.5kwh/mile and my electricity price is $0.15/kwh, so it costs me $0.075/mile to drive. At current gas prices that's pretty much the same as a very efficient hybrid compact car (55mpg @ ~$4/gallon). If I had solar I could probably offset almost all of the lightning fuel cost based on where I live (sunny) but it's so cheap it's not worth it.
Do you mean "much more efficient" in places where electricity rates are significantly higher than the national average? Or only much more efficient when compared to when you're charging at charging stations?
I mean efficient in engineering terms, not economics. A cybertruck is not as efficient as a small SUV (model Y) which is not as efficient as a sedan (model 3).
Cybertruck — 2mi/kwh
Model Y — 3.8mi/kwh
Model 3 — 4mi/kwh
1 reply →
> Another way to view this is that driving a cybertruck every day is quite wasteful (no different than driving a full size gas pickup every day). One recharge cycle in a cybertruck uses enough energy to power a typical home for 8 days, 130kWh.
Driving in general uses a lot of energy. It’s the physically moving a 1,000 kg or more object that takes a lot of energy. Orders of magnitude more than a few lights or a phone. Same with flying of course; also moving a heavy object.
As someone towing every weekend with a Lightning, I get closer to 150mi.
ICE trucks are equally inefficient for towing. People just don't seem to be able to factor it in.
The thing is that ICE vehicles are so inefficient to begin with, but a towed trailer needs the same amount of energy regardless of what is towing it.
Imagine a trailer takes 1 unit of energy to move, and ICE truck takes 5 units to move itself, and EV truck takes 1 unit to move itself.
The ICE truck towing it would go from 5 units to 6 units, reducing the range by 16%.
The EV truck would now go from 1 unit to 2 units, reducing the range by 50%.
So the better your efficiency, the worse you are at towing. Ideally EV trucks would have such a huge battery that even when the range is reduced by 50%, it is still as long as a gas truck's range, but modern battery technology is still too sucky to achieve this.
Are they really that inefficient? My 94 Roadmaster sedan gets 14ish mpg towing 7000lbs at 60mph, which works out to a bit over 300 miles on a tank. I figured your average gas truck would do at least that well, and they have larger tanks.
meanwhile, my impression is the whole poor towing narrative (while true) is a big part of what killed the ev truck when how many people use trucks in the way they could otherwise use a four-door sedan.
"ICE trucks are equally inefficient for towing."
Not so sure about that one, boss. I can fully-load up a Ford Ranger to its 7500lb rated towing capacity and lose ~10% in fuel economy/range while you just dropped something like 30% (from the base power package range of ~240 miles, platinum package at 300 miles you're losing half if you only get 150 miles out.)
1 reply →
If the underlying energy is coming from a renewable source, then it wouldn't matter all that much, would it?
Power still costs money.
5 replies →
I own a pretty typical phev sedan (Gen 2. Volt), and I use more electricity on my 20 mile commute than the rest of my power usage combined.
All cars just use a ton of power moving a lot of mass. It is actually impressive, it's like 100KW at full tilt. I think i saw someone do the math for how much power transfer you would need to get EV charging as fast as gasoline refuelling: It's in the megawatts.
The only way you could signifigantly reduce power usage of vehicles is to reduce mass dramaticially with a motorcyle or autocycle. The Aptera is an interesting autocycle design based on this line of reasoning, but we are also seeing the emergence of a lot of electric motorcycles.
Yep, having each individual person commuting in their own car is just not that efficient in general. Another data point that amazes me is the NYC subway uses 4-5 million kWh per day. Sounds like a lot until you realize that around 4 million people ride it every day, that’s about 1kWh, or maybe like 20 cents of electricity, per rider. A person commuting 35 miles in an EV would take about 10 kWh daily. They’re never going to beat the efficiency of public transportation.
Also regarding filling up an EV as fast as gasoline, there’s a company in China that has demonstrated charging from 20-80% in 5 minutes. They’re using 3MW charging.
It makes you realize why gasoline has been so popular for so long, you can stop for 5 minutes and dump 500 kWh of energy into your tank. Unfortunately most of that is wasted as heat during the combustion process.
4 replies →
In addition to the Aptera, I think there's a potential market for the enclosed 2-wheel vehicles also like the MonoRacer. The aerodynamic efficiency gains of enclosed cabin motorcycles is huge and greatly improves range, especially at highway speeds. I'd like to see something similar at a lower price range and produced in greater volume.
https://www.peravescz.com/electric-version/
In summer time with a pool and AC, we use 100kw in one day
Yeah the Silverado EV has my attention but it's the same issue: if you, like me, actually use your truck for truck shit, an electric truck is a substantial, notable downgrade from ICE.
That said if you have a Mall Crawler who's heaviest loads are your monthly Costco run, an electric truck would probably be great for you. I still wouldn't recommend a Cybertruck though.
Yeah, wasteful, like one day we will ever run out of energy lol
[flagged]
Battery cost per kwh is way cheaper for buying them in a car than a power wall or similar system for many vehicles.
For years Tesla didn't let you know use the battery in the car this way because they made money selling power walls. Then they added the inverter as part of selling that thing.
Multiple other cars have it and someone now sells an inverter that works on old teslas too
This is now a feature of most new Tesla vehicles:
https://www.tesla.com/powershare/#vehicles
> Powershare allows you to draw power directly from your compatible Tesla vehicle to power your devices, your home or the grid.
> Powershare is currently available for all Cybertruck vehicles, and all new Model 3 and Model Y2 vehicles ordered on October 1, 2026 or later.
> To verify if your vehicle has Powershare, navigate to ‘Software’ > ‘Additional Vehicle Info’ > ‘Powershare Support: Enabled’ on your vehicle touchscreen.
The caveat is that Powershare is low wattage. You really need to pair it with a Powerwall and have an average draw less than the limited capability of the car to supply it.
To power a house directly from an EV, the main options now are the EV trucks -- Lightning, Silverado, Cybertruck all can have this ability, 240V 30A typically
It's not _that_ low, from the Tesla site: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-E261502...
> Model 3 provides a maximum draw of 11.5 kW.
You can't run your heating or air conditioning at full tilt, but otherwise that will get you at lot, this is 240V at ~45A.
I ran the fridges and essentials with my Ioniq 5 the last time there was an extended power loss.
I don't think the residential power generator is needed anymore if you have an electric car.
I have a Tesla Y. It has almost a week of power sitting in it on full charge. There's no hookup. The only power outlet is usb-c pd.
Completely missed opportunity. I won't be buying an electric vehicle that doesn't allow powering my house, ever again.
I have a 2017 Tesla S100D. (Yay back when we had letters and numbers!)
As you probably know, there's a 12 volt battery in these cars. That battery is automatically recharged by the big 100kWh main battery.
Some years back, I bought a 12 volt, 2000W inverter and connected it to this 12 volt battery in the Tesla, ran a couple of extension cords, and powered our refrigerator, extra freezer, and a number of other things with it for many hours. The main battery percentage in the car showed an appropriate drop. This actually wasn't during an outage, it was contingency testing. We already have a natural gas, 3600 watt generator that connects to one of our panels and use that during (unfortunately frequent) outages.
In my 2017, it's a bit of work to get to that battery, but it's quite doable and seemingly quite safe. The obvious, very rough/estimated/simplistic math is the 100kWh main battery divided by 2kW is about 50 hours. Different factors would push that number up and down of course.
1 reply →
Doesnt powershare just work via the charging cable? It is a advertised feature of the Y
4 replies →
Have an older Model Y too. It’s a real bummer that Tesla decided to give up being the bleeding edge tech company. No V2L/V2H, no Apple CarPlay, no longer range leaders in their category (though still cheapest per km range).
> There's no hookup. The only power outlet is usb-c pd.
We have a 12v port that we can get ~200W out of, so that could power our internet.
But I agree, a real joke to have 150KwH (two EVs) in my garage and no way to even plug in a fridge.
V2H/V2L is a must have in my next EV.
> The only power outlet is usb-c pd.
Don't give the USB consortium any ideas...
1 reply →
No association, but something like this is "the right answer", IMHO: https://www.cargenerator.com/pages/use-your-car-as-a-backup-...
1) if you're permanently modifying your home or electric panel you're over $1k. (General Motors "Vehicle2House" is ~$10-20k for hardware + installation... an EXTREME investment unless you plan on regular "emergency" usage of it)
2) if you're buying some portable solar panel "battery boom box" you'll likely run out and the folding solar panel it comes with is more gimmick than reliable
3) if you're buying a "real" gas/diesel generator, you have to run it + change the oil every 6 months otherwise it might not start in your emergency situation
...just buy a thing that clips to your car battery and dangles out the front hood of your car!
You already maintain your car every 3-9 months, you already (should) have at least 1/2 tank of gas at all times (especially in a weather / outage situation), you can generally idle your car for at least 2 days off a tank of gas in an emergency, and if this thing can charge your phone/battery packs, keep your fridge running (kindof?), and run a small space heater overnight...
It makes soooo much more sense to buy a $500-$1000 emergency accessory that piggybacks off the car you already maintain than trying to stand up a whole extra distribution mechanism for "survival-ish power, maybe 1-2 times over 3-4 years".
I don't think the residential power generator is needed anymore if you have an electric car.
As soon as we got the adapter for our Ioniq 5, I sold generator to a neighbor. The car will run what we need for four days, which is longer than the generator and five gallon can of gas is going to last.
If you have an electric car that supports V2H.
Despite the dealer saying the used one I bought supported it, it turned out to not be available in the trim I got. My fault obviously for believing something a car dealer said.
This thread is first time I hear about V2H. (I don’t have any car yet, electric or otherwise.)
It sounds amazing. Only thing I wonder if it can even be set up so that it will be like an Uninterruptible Power Supply. So that when there is a blackout, the V2H supplies all the power without any interruption.
I have several computers but no UPS yet. Imagine if I could buy an electric car and when I am not using it, my car is UPS for my whole house including my computers! :D
3 replies →
V2L will also do the trick, although it's more annoying.
If power loss is a regular event you probably want V2H, but if it's just a remote fear or something that happens once every 5~10 then V2L and a few extension cords will do.
I camped in a yurt in rural Maine last fall on a motorbiking trip. Needed to keep my phone charged for nav; woke up to find it hadn't charged all the way.
Went looking for the campground host and bumped into another camper, who was pissed the power went out. "Don't worry though - if you need to charge something, you can put it in my truck."
Ended up on a phone charging expedition that landed me in a local library for the first time since I was a child.
Came back and met the host: "Sorry about the power last night - some dumbass tried to charge his truck and tripped the breaker to the whole campground."
Charging a truck does that? What's that campground going to do with someone plugs in their 50A 43 foot-long tour bus RV?
(I'm sure there's more to the story, and the details aren't important, but if charging a vehicle is tripping breakers for the whole campground there's something wrong.)
“yurt in rural Maine” did not convey RV glamping to me.
2 replies →
If pulling 24 amps through a TT-30 or 40 amps through a 14-50 trips a breaker, then it's the host's fault for the campground having a shoddy electrical system, not the truck driver's fault.
Approximately zero campgrounds have the capacity to charge more than one EV. They are sized for intermittent loads, just because it uses a 14-50 does not mean it is intended to support 80% steady draw.
2 replies →
Lol in what world? Campgrounds routinely have next to no funding, if they even have power pedestals I wouldn't expect them to be wired for anything more than an RV.
3 replies →
I would definitely be carrying a battery pack or two if going on a rural motorbike trip.
I installed a Peak Design Qi charger for the trip. Turns out their charger and their phone case weren't electrically compatible. I was pretty mad about it.
Battery's not super useful if you want to put the phone on your handlebars while riding. Screen is a lot more helpful than audio cues. If you can only charge when parked, it's either charge from a battery and have to top up the battery later, or just charge the phone directly.
The friend I did the trip with was on nav for the first part of the trip, but he had to turn back early for family stuff.
> but the emergency prepper in me
A friend who was in the Marines bought this point up along with another good one. (Bit of paraphrasing here) "It's the only bullet proof vehicle that's stock and acts like a giant battery in a blackout. As ugly as it is, it offers a lot of personal protection that people actually want and NEED depending on who they are and where they live. There are a lot of wealthy people who are buying them just for the fact that it's bullet proof."
The now defunct fully electric Ford F150 Lightning also had the feature.
This is a pretty common feature in High capacity cars.
Even my mid-range BYD came with power strip attachment so you run basic electrical appliance with it.
Yea, I hate that the Lightning didn’t work out. I loved the vehicle when I test drove it. I just couldn’t justify the price for the range.
Yeah if you have to tow long distances it's not an ideal choice. Under normal use I get 250-350 miles (lower end for high speed cruising, higher for surface roads), which has been plenty. And at 50K (brand new) it was cheaper than any of the comparable gas versions. The unexpected bonus was that it hasn't depreciated much at all in the last few years.
They're a great used buy. I get ~315 miles out of mine with mostly highway driving. Paid $45K for a platinum.
All American car makers did not take lessons from Tesla's successes. It seems not even Tesla
This is nothing specific to the CyberTruck; 123 kWh is a lot of battery but a better use would be to add home solar and then you're completely self-sufficient in addition to saving tons of money.
Of course there are two issues that are completely solveable if we had reasonable governance:
1. Adopting an Australia-style solar installation regulation and permitting scheme, which is literally 1/5th tho cost of the US method, and pays their tradespeolpe higher salaries than US workers get
2. Allowing EVs to feed back into the grid. This is something that naysayers would never be useful because nobody would ever want to waste battery cycles on their home. Which of course has always been nonsense. Don't buy EVs without this basic capability, IMHO.
I’ve looked at solar so many times and I’d love to get it…I just can’t make the math work based on the quotes I always end up getting.
That's entirely due to the US scheme, where utilities have ensured that it won't make sense nearly everywhere. Which is then combined with the asinine permitting situation in the US, where every city and county does something on their own without any order or sense.
This combines to ensure that any solar installer will do lots of very expensive things: 1) have a large sales force to close the sale, which last I looked accounted for 30%-40% of the overall cost of solar in the US, 2) roll out trucks many different times during the planning and install, each costing lots of money, 3) never have to compete with a bunch of other hyper-competitive installers and find efficiencies like batching installs together in the same general area.
There are also massively high solar PV tariffs in the US, more than tripling the cost of the panels, but that's not even that big compared to the rest of the needless inefficiency in the system.
2 replies →
There are cheaper, more reliable, and easily repaired generators though.
But can they also be driven?
You can drive a $30K car and have a $10K backup power system.
An $80K-100K car that replaces the two isn't some genius purchase.
Sure you can spend all the money you want on a luxury toy, nothing wrong with it, but it's weird trying to justify it as anything but that.
29 replies →
Yes. Many electric cars and trucks have this feature.
You an drive almost every EV that has that feature too.
Or rather, you can take half of the difference in price and install some proper PV + battery system in your house that can be used when there's isn't a catastrophe too.
No, but because they can't be driven, your house stays powered when someone goes for a drive.
you're inventing the alternator from first principles
> But can they also be driven?
Sounds like you're desperately searching for a problem where a specific make and model of a car can fit as a solution. That doesn't make the car any better than it is.
No, that's what my car is for. You can't drive your cybertruck when it's running your refrigerator. Wrong tool for the job.
9 replies →
This is obviously not the primary reason to get a Telsa. But a full home generator will run you $15k to buy and install where i live, and a whole bunch of hassle to install with permits. I don't have one because my power doesn't go out that much. But if i'm otherwise on the fence about a vehicle, I would absolutely want this as a feature.
Maybe a generator sized to run a regular home in perpetuity, but I bet it's much, much less than that to have an electrician install a GenerLink and to buy a regular portable generator just powerful enough to run your fridge and freezer.
In our area, when a storm hit, the roads washed out, so the generators ran out of propane. Then the local propane companies ran out of delivery truck capacity because of the demand surge. Finally, the regional distributors ran out of propane.
Our solar panels kept the fridge running, but we were heating the house with a wood stove (it was very cloudy, so we were getting maybe an hour of sun a day). If we had bidirectional house charging, we could have had warm showers + used the heat pump: We would have been able to fast-charge the car at 100-200kw in town. The house can limp through 20-30 hours on ~ 25kwh, so the charger would charge the house at a few days per hour, including losses from driving to and from town + round tripping through the battery, and also running the house heat pump.
None of the other people around here stayed online. Some propane-dependent people had no electricity for > 2 weeks (with rationing, they managed to keep their generators online for about a week, and PG&E took three weeks to fix their lines).
This was in the outskirts of Silicon Valley, so better-than-puerto-rico infrastructure, but only just.
This is a total failure/incompetence of multiple utility institutions that we all pay for and depend on. An electric company that does not have the capacity to respond quickly to natural disasters and propane delivery infrastructure that doesn't have the reserves to weather such an event. Even a day without electricity should be unacceptable in a modern, functional society. How do we tolerate 2 weeks? I bet the CEOs of these companies are not going without electricity for 2 weeks.
We are far away from, but slowly approaching, Mad Max levels of institutional failure, and everyone seems to treat it as normal and unavoidable.
1 reply →
You forgot "higher maintenance" that goes along with seldom-used things that run on gas. That gas doesn't drain itself, and if you don't do that, well, Amazon has carbs for Honda generators for $30. For something I might use once a year. No, thanks.
It's worth noting that there are several other (nearly objectively better) EVs on the market with larger battery capacity than the CT and have V2H/Powershare tech.
If you live in a sunny area, it's much cheaper to install solar with a hybrid inverter (like a Sol-Ark) with some batteries, and a generator for the extended outages. The cybertruck's battery is 123 kwh, whereas a gallon of gas contains approx 33 kwh of energy. A mere 5 gallon container of gas is more energy than the entire cybertruck.
> They may be ugly, but the emergency prepper in me always wanted one after hearing that story
If all you're after is the V2L feature, you can get it for much cheaper: for 16% of the price of a Cybertruck, you can get 86% of the battery capacity (about 8 powerwalls) by buying a used Fisker Ocean Extreme with a 107kWh battery, vs. the cybertruck's 123kWh
It’s nice if the car you buy is made by a company still in business.
This works for the wealthy that can afford it, but would it be better to be press for a better grid for everyone instead? It amazes me how individualistic and wasteful the usa is.
Ford had EV trucks that could do that before Tesla did.
The ford home integration setup never really worked as advertised. The idea is that if the home power fails, the truck will output high voltage DC to an inverter that powers the house. No owners have got this failing over reliably.
Most people just plug an extension cord into the onboard inverter. You have to manually flip it on and plug it in, but 240V30A is plenty for an emergency. Doing it this way isn't any different from any other vehicle with an onboard inverter though.
It's completely illegal unless your home has a "transfer switch" (manual or automatic) installed for this purpose - and if you're plugged into the generator side of a transfer switch, then you can't charge the truck, only discharge it. There are probably modules designed for solar power that allow two-way transfer safely.
On the other hand there are no tricky rules for an electric truck to have extra power outlets in it.
3 replies →
Do cybertrucks work any differently?
1 reply →
No one is saying they can’t. Drop the whataboutism, please.
The whole GP is irrelevant to the article regardless. Point being, what does it matter that the cybertruck has this feature when it's a not unique and b irrelevant to why it failed.
The whole comment comes across as an AI agent that is lacking severe human context by posting a complete non-sequitur, regardless if it is actually an agent or not.
2 replies →
Do they now?
I know its been a few years, but the Cybertruck has been an epic disaster.
Cybertruck was announced first. Then Ford _released_ the F150 Lightning, including the ability to operate as a backup battery for a house. And a dozen or so months later, Cybertruck comes out at a much higher price than F150 Lightning ever was.
4 replies →
Interesting, This reminds me a V2V energy transportation. There was a study in the past to investigate how could it be designed in the public transportation:
https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...
Still imaginary though. (how come vehicles can exchange energy quickly?)
> how [can] vehicles can exchange energy quickly?
Currently in pilot on a small fleet of electric trucks in Australia (actual trucks - prime movers for road trains) - large standard swappable battery packs that can be removed and replaced with a fork lift.
Swap time ~ 3 minutes.
I used to have an inverter I installed in my vehicle, mainly to run powertools, and brew hot cocoa during stargazing events. During the great North American power outage in the early 2000's, I ran an extension cord into the house and ran some basic stuff off it (I recall us being the only ones around who could watch TV to keep up with the news). It was only 1200W (though had an extra deep cycle battery hooked up), but helped enough for a few vitals.
may I ask why would it not be more sensible to have solar panels, battery and generators? Is that not a viable project? I'm consodering that for myself, never thought on a cybertruck
God, you just don't get it do you? \s
What appliances exactly did the house have? And does it last couple of days even for appliances with compressors and heating coils? If it did that then thats pretty impressive! And your friend is a genius
My Renault Scenic E-Tech can also do V2H, it is not specific to Cybertruck.
If that’s the only thing you care about you can DIY (or buy dedicated battery backup systems) with 10x more capacity for the same price. With heavier but cheaper Na-ion batteries in the horizon near future backup systems will be even better
Ford did the same thing, but that truck was built during the height of parts shortages.
Ford came in and bought up all of the parts from our suppliers and I had to qual random suppliers for weeks. Even at the time, I was thinking there is too much disparity and this will haunt us for years.
We were a bit more agile and I made a lot of kernel hacks to compensate.
Ford didn’t fare better for all their choices. Recalls galore. Honestly, they made my life hell so fuck em.
On to the truck, they had a proprietary charger and power wall solution but it could run the house for days.
The requirements for a home battery are vastly different than for a vehicle. For home, size and weight matter much less and capacity and discharge matter much more. Vehicle batteries would nearly always be the wrong solution to power a home.
The F150 hybrid is/was also supposed to be really good for this, and when the battery ran down, the engine would switch on and recharge it. So, you were not dependent on a super charger. All you needed is a working gas station. (This is based on an old video from Alex on Autos). So, you could buy a vehicle that is both cheaper and doesn't look like a dumpster and still be able to do this.
Battery capacity is just one side of the equation. You also need a strong output capacity otherwise you won't much. Also if you are to inject current in your network like that, then you need at least a source inverter to isolate yourself from the grid, otherwise it would most likely be illegal and very dangerous for technicians and neighbors. Also
I just have a gas heater, gas stove, and some spare 9kg cylinders of LPG. I can even hook them up to my gas hot water if we're desperate for a shower.
Huh. That's pretty cool! Now I'm wondering about the potential to do this with any EV. Something to research.
The Ford F-150 Lightning has always been able to do that, way before the Tesla cars enabled vehicle-to-load (V2L).
Delivering power back to the net is a standard feature on most EVs now.
Are the battery compartments water proof? We got hit by a hurricane a few years ago, and a few nearby teslas caught on fire from the floodwaters, torching people's houses.
that is not the only car who can reverse-charge the house. All EVs are theoretically capable of it, given proper power switching algorithm. (the hardware is already there, just how the four switches open/close to reverse the energy flowing direction.)
I've always like their look, and I feel the hate on them is more due to Elon and it being a Tesla which is fair.
Weird looking truck, glad they took the risk
Yeah, I don't know if I like the look, but I'm glad to see something that's at least different.
This is a feature on many new electric vehicles (such as the Kia EV 9). The obstacle is often the power company, which may require modifying your system to enable this.
Can you do this with other normal EVs? I assume they'd have lower capacity, but just getting some power for your fridge, wifi, and chargers might be worth.
Sort of. With my Kia EV9 I can use a V2L adapter to run an extension cord for essential items in my home. I understand in other markets there is a V2H connector so you can connect it to your home mains power but I don’t think it’s available in the US
Yes, I used mine in July 2024 to power my fridge and a couple of items when I lost power in Texas. Unfortunately the V2H requires a setup that I don't have.
In theory, yes, but they need to have the hardware/firmware to do it. Pretty sure most of the full-size electric trucks do so, but not sure about any of the smaller crossover EVs.
You also need to have the house setup to run off a generator. You don't want the truck power feeding back into the grid. IIRC, that's usually done with a big switch near the main panel.
No, you can't even do it with most other Teslas. Current models will give you 20A of 120V out from the battery, but most don't have an inverter big enough.
There is a model of Ford Lightning that has power sharing and now that resale values are way down it just might be a cost effective home battery that you can drive around during non-emergencies....
The power sharing in the lightning requires a discontinued home charger and several thousand in extra inverters and other home infrastructure to do the power share trick.
You can also just plug into the 30A240V bed plug and use the onboard inverter on the lightning or powerboost hybrid f150 with less headache.
You can do it with multiple EVs. The KIA EV9 is one of them.
In theory, it requires ONLY firmware changes. V2G/V2H works by establishing a "fast charging session" that directly connects the inverter to the high-voltage bus. And then it just siphons off the energy from the battery instead of charging it.
Car makers are reluctant to support this. In case of Tesla because of market segmentation.
Vehicle to Home(V2H) is unfortunately not super common, but it is being added to a lot of newer models this year and beyond.
Did Ford have Truck that did that and I am pretty sure a new and improved version is coming with the new Phantom.
I believe this but I'm curious how this works specifically? Did the home already have a transfer switch of some kind?
What are the chances that the supercharger station even has power after a hurricane? You want something that is already on the property. I've had roads blocked by fallen trees for days after a windstorm event.
If you are concerned about riding through a 14 day+ event you need a generator. Even a fully off-grid solar / wind setup could be compromised in these kinds of storms. I've seen entire roofs cleaned off by a <100mph storm. Anything not bolted down to a concrete slab cannot be depended on.
High. They typically need heavy power lines that are either underground or way up overhead.
Many EVs can do the same thing.
It’s unclear to me how a vehicle battery can be 9-10x the size of a house battery, be used as a house battery, include an highway safe cabin, motors and wheels and only cost 4x what a single home battery costs. Oh, and at least Kia rates their battery warranty based on miles driven, so using it as a home battery does not impact any 10-year capacity guarantees.
AI tells me they are completely different though, so I must be missing something.
What you are missing is home batteries have INSANE markups.
5kWh of battery cells at the moment run around $500. The rest of the cost of production is in the power electronics (probably around another $500).
It's why you can buy 4kwh worth of battery backups from Amazon for about $2k right now. Yet the same thing sold as a home battery backup costs $5k.
Lack of competition and likely low amount of sells is what's causing the margins to be so high.
Right now it's largely a vanity product sadly.
Permitting in California more than doubles the installation cost of home batteries + PG&E gets to screw with you if you buy one.
Propane generators here have the same problem.
That still doesn't explain the price gap. You can literally just get a V2H EV and use it instead of a home battery (or, you could if the ecosystem was more mature).
If it's wired to the grid I presume. So if it's just for emergencies, don't wire it to the grid.
Good question - different markets with different margins and supply chains?
The answer is mostly that the powerwall is an incredibly overpriced home battery.
They want ~9k for a freaking 13.5kwh pack.
I can buy a UL certified, 16kwh, outdoor rated pack for 3.5k (ex - EG4 allweather)
I can buy just the LFP batteries themselves for the new powerwall 3 LFP version (no BMS, no shell, no certification) for $1116... https://18650battery.com/products/byd-302ah-3-2v-lifepo4-pri...
Powerwall is a scammy product. WAY too expensive for the storage it provides.
---
So the summary is: Cybertruck is using a different battery chemistry, Powerwall is a scam.
(I mean - to be clear, the Cybertruck is also a scam, but it's a different kind of scam not directly related to the battery capacity, since it's hauling around a 123kWh NCMA battery pack)
Wasn't aware of EG4 on the market now. Good. So many of the older home backup producers have ridiculous markups on their batteries.
I think "recycling" cybertrucks in this manner, basically to reuse their batteries, may give them a more practical afterlife then when they were a truck.
I just checked and prices are going to have to come way down. Who is buying a 2024 Cybertruck for $70k+?
Try an F150 Lightning with the Extended Battery
Very few, I would imagine. Pricing is just divorced from reality (as in, the point where you'd be able to successfully sell one in a reasonable amount of time), the "I know what I have" stubbornness that is pervasive among a certain type of seller to their own detriment. Pure speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if this specific car basically self selects for that type of person.
[0] https://caredge.com/tesla/cybertruck/depreciation
Recycling them to make saucepans from the stainless steel would give them a more practical afterlife then when they were a truck.
Not bad. The shell would also make a nice BBQ.
It's a cool car. I'm glad it exists. All SUVs look almost identical. I'm glad it was different, not for everyone but it was an attempt to make something innovative in a very stale market.
It's exhausting reading these kinds of articles from a tech publication none the less. It's just so negative. Here is a summary of paragraphs:
Cybertruck is ceasing production
Here's a mean tweet from some X account with 2,649 followers: "Fuck that shitbox"
The car rusts sometimes
Truck sold very few units
Even with low sales they're still going down
Wildly unpopular with design flaws
Mention embarrassing demo from 7 years ago
It just goes on, truly exhausting.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a36715409/why-does-...
You can do the same thing with an f150 or Silverado ev and won’t have to drive around in a discontinued rolling doorstop.
https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/franklinwh-...
https://gmenergy.gm.com/vehicle-to-home
> They may be ugly, but the emergency prepper in me always wanted one after hearing that story.
The cybertruck is $70k, which in a 14-day power outage is $5000 a day.
There are cheaper options to weather such a storm. Like flying first class to New York, getting a limo to the Central Park Ritz-Carlton and spending 14 days being waited on hand and foot.
Counterpoint: I live off-grid and am thankful I can just power my house with batteries instead of a massive car that looks like a Dumpster
The F-150 powerboost is perfect for this and has existed before the Cybertruck. https://www.nucarfordtilton.com/f-150-powerboost-explained/ big bonus, you get a real truck with it too. That can do real truck things.
I agree that it’s cool, but is it practical? If your goal is to power your house, you can buy a whole-house backup generator for about 1/12th of the cost of a cybertruck.
Are you prepared if a meteor hits and wipes out the grid ?
A cyber truck as a prepper rig is laughable. EV's do a lot of things well, but if it's a prepper rig, you'd need to have a generator and the fuel set aside to charge it. You can't assume that there will be power near by. If there is power, you can't assume that you will have access to one of the relatively few chargers available.
You can get a generator that will get the job done for under 1000 bucks and you can store diesel or propane to get the job done.
That's before we factor in the likelyhood needing to travel quite a distance (and assume there is no access to grid power), and that you won't have any of the cybertruck defeating issues like heavy rains or standing water that might void it's warranty and fry it's electronics.
A prepper rig is a mechanical diesel that can be roll started or hand cranked without batteries, has no electronics to get fried except the radio, and can burn almost any combustible fuel source on hand. Slap a 200 Gallon transfer tank on the back and keep it full and you can drive across the country without fueling up. And if you also have that diesel generator to power your house, you've got a years worth of fuel for that generator.
You can get all that done for around 25k USD, so, not sure how a cyber truck even enters the conversation.
> A cyber truck as a prepper rig is laughable.
It was. Everything was pathetic. The claims of being bullet proof, being an amphibious car, being all-terrain, rugged, etc.
Sometimes it sounded like it was all for political theater.
A real pepper would want a car that runs on gas with a carburated engine and is also a common car. Not a niche one off that requires fussy infrastructure just to refuel.
A generator would work better in this situation right?
The Hyundai/Kia E-GMP platform cars also support this (V2L), as do quite a few others.
This is becoming a standard called V2H (Vehicle-to-Home) and doesn't require a Cybertruck.
I would like to see more vehicle-to-grid capability out of cars, EVs, Hybrids, and Gas Cars alike.
My F150 Lightning has an even bigger battery pack in it... and a simple 240V outlet.
A gas generator is a lot more flexible in this situation, and under $500.
Generally a propane generator is a wiser, more reliable backup option. Propane doesn't go bad, and in disaster scenarios often the sun isn't shining or your solar panels could be damaged. Solar + battery is a good system when the weather is good and everything is going well, but for a fallback system a propane generator can't be beat.
Yeah, this is where I landed, too. Except propane bottles only get me about 3-4 hours per bottle and it's pricey. It ran $50 for one day of AC during the last outage.
I just bought a kit to convert to natural gas though. Most people who've done it are happy to not change bottles all the time. It won't help after an earthquake but the regular PSPS outages I get make natural gas a better fit for the moment.
Not everyone lives somewhere with natural gas service, and gas service could also go out in some types of disasters.
It’s possible to get larger propane tanks and refill them more cheaply (rather than exchanging expensive grill tanks at the store). Some hardware stores will refill tanks directly. You can even get very large tanks (refilled by a truck that comes to your house) if you want weeks of power on tap. But this is probably overkill for most, unless you’re very remote.
2 replies →
Im not sure AC is the sort of thing most people are thinking about needing power for in an emergency or disaster scenario, its one of the most power hungry things you can use.
11 replies →
We got a 500 gal propane tank. Get it topped off every so often, can power two large portables and one built in generator for longer than we've ever needed, even close to it.
I'm looking into getting a large EV so I can move off of a propane generator. A generator needs service, it will cut power for 5-10 seconds while it starts up (so your PCs and whatnot will power cycle), and it's loud.
Always a good idea to have a UPS, even if you don’t have a generator, to protect your home computers from transient outages, power flickers, or grid voltage fluctuations.
I live off grid and only have solar because it was cheaper than the wire.
Also, I built it myself so the labor costs aren't included but I am about $8k into a system (4kw of panels, 6kw inverter, 15kwH battery).
I personally wouldn't be able to make vehicle cheaper than having no grid tie. I get that the costs are different once you include labor. Also I am on 40acres so the panel set could be ground mounted.
But to make something commensurable with a propane home-powering generator seems a lot more do-able.
Won't an EV have maintenance costs too? And cost a lot more than a propane generator? And take time to switch over to supply electricity to your house?
The quiter part makes sense, but there are a lot more practical solutions to that too.
1 reply →
I'm running an EG4 system with a decent amount of battery storage. I have a generator port on it that makes it easy to plug in a portable generator to assist the PV and charge the battery. It's really easy for me to roll my generator over and run it a few hours a day to supplement the solar. Even a cheap 5kW generator is plenty because it doesn't need to power the house, just provide a continuous charge to the batteries.
Wouldn’t a diesel or gasoline generator be better? You can carry both in a bucket found on the side of the road which isn’t possible with propane.
A diesel generator would definitely be better on paper, but the costs involved are much higher as those are generally a permanent install. A gasoline generator requires much more maintenance around fuel and the carburetor as gasoline goes bad over time and modern gas/petrol with ethanol in it sucks up water from the air. A propane generator, while it is a bit more annoying to refuel, especially if you upgrade to larger tanks, is perfectly happy to sit for 6-12 months unused and then start right up on the tank of fuel that's been sitting next to it for that time period.
A propane generator is a temporary solution but likely is good enough for most folks who just need to keep the fridge cold and maybe charge cell phones. It's not going to be able to run your house AC or anything, though.
Very cool story! Love hearing neat use cases like this.
Just buy a generator and you don’t have to support a fascist? Some of you guys are sooooo fucking weird
sounds like you'll get a deal on a used one shortly...
If you need to worry about such extended outages, why not just do the normal thing and install propane tanks, a stationary generator, and a transfer switch?
I powered the house off a much less fancier 4XE Jeep, which has a generator, and so, arguably more versatile as you don't need spend time charging.
Other EVs can do this. You don't need one that ended up being twice the price and half the range and not an actual steel exoskeleton as promised.
Almost every Chinese car does Vehicle to Home but of course Muricans have outlawed what competes successfully with them
Just buy a diesel generator. Much simpler tech and more reliable in emergencies.
why put in powerwalls without local solar panels?
Get a Tesla semi when it comes out
hybrid ford f150 can do this too
You can buy the batteries installed at your home, charged during the day with solar or night with a small ICE generator. That plus a real same-class truck still costs considerably less than a CT.
You can get a lot of backup power for less than 100k.
my jelly neighbor story is that when our neighbors replaced their ice truck with a cybertruck, a calm descended on our block. iso of getting woken up by the rumble of that damn thing when they started it, they just zoomed off, silently. its the first time i internalized that electric vehicles are inherently better than ice. more human.
Or you know you could buy a $8k natural gas generator, seems like a really poor justification to buy such an expensive car.
>The battery capacity on those things is equivalent to 9 Tesla Powerwall units or something close to it.
What the fuck
what about balcony solar power or a turbine? Chances are if your power is knocked out by a storm the closest supercharger also would be.
Yes, drain your car to power your house, so in an extended outage your house will be out of power and you will be stranded. Risk management, people. You don’t know if power will go out in even more places, or stay off for an extended period of time.
[dead]