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Comment by reacharavindh | Hacker News Reader

A serious question. If power outages are that common that you need to have this backup, would you not consider a bank of LFP batteries and an inverter before you think of using your car for this? In case of a grid outage/emergency, having a car that is untethered to the house is handy right?

It's not the same, but my parents back in India have a few Lead acid batteries hooked up to an inverter to supply backup power when power outage occurs (about once a week). They have been doing this for decades now. I'm just wondering why a larger scale version of this with LFP batteries and may be solar panels to charge them wouldn't work where you are..

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I've considered it, yeah. The truck's other advantage of course is that it's a truck. I have an older Honda Ridgeline that is perfect for me in terms of size (I don't tow anything, but frequently load the bed), but it is horrible on fuel consumption. 14 MPG (~ 17 L/100 km) or so is common for around town, 20 MPG (~12 L/100 km) on the highway if I'm lucky. With fuel costs rising as much as they do, it starts to make a little more sense.

The ROI on a new one would still be extremely long, but it starts to become more justifiable as features like this are added. If Ford makes an electric version of the Maverick - their small truck - it'll be a very easy decision, assuming it can still power a house.

On the other hand, I wonder if it will be able to compete with ICE trucks for pretty standard truck-things like towing. If it's anything like my Tesla, the range is going to fall off precipitously the moment anything touches that hitch, and if you're not graced with a California winter, doubly so (it's really a shame Tesla puts so much of its engineering in one locale or else it might've been more pressing to solve for this). And I'm guessing public chargers with room for a trailer/boat/etc are few and far between.

One test[0] put it at roughly half the range (150-160 miles) when towing near its rating of 10,000 lbs.

Personally I don't tow anything, I just use the bed to haul stuff, so I would probably see a minimal loss of range. Also, inter-city travel is unlikely to be affected as long as you can get back home at the end of the day.

[0] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/2022-ford-f150-lightning-...

> One test[0] put it at roughly half the range (150-160 miles) when towing near its rating of 10,000 lbs.

That's not bad.

> Also, inter-city travel is unlikely to be affected as long as you can get back home at the end of the day.

Agreed, but stuff like camping and boating is going to be limited, which is too bad because a giant battery would really open up the options for camping.

This isn't a truck for people gallivanting across the country with a camper in tow or the kind of guy that the local Sunbelt Rentals manager is on a first name basis with.

This is a truck for someone who has a commuter sedan and a Toyota Tacoma or Honda Odyssey parked in their garage somewhere the houses cost a million bucks and there are more Black Lives Matter signs than black people, i.e. the kind of person who would have bought a crew cab half ton a decade ago if daily driving one didn't make them feel like a backwards hick poisoning the climate.

I'm sure it will "do truck stuff" as well as any other F150 (OEMs don't play fast and loose with the reputation of flagship products like the F150) but the range will obviously be subject to the same tradeoffs as every other EV. but these are demographics that break out in a cold sweat at the idea of cramming five people in a compact car. They're gonna use the thing at a fraction of it's capability. Towing 10k will be a once a year thing if that. That should be fine for now as most buyers will just want to tow to home depot or the boat ramp.

The range will creep up over the coming years as batteries get better until finally the EV truck also makes sense guy who's towing the camper cross country.

Actually this is a great truck for people "that the local Sunbelt Rentals manager is on a first name basis with." They often are working on projects with a generator, and typically are not far from where they sleep at night. The truck hauls tools from the hotel where they spent the night to the job and that is about it. Then they plug the tools into a generator - which this truck is.

I definitely know a lot of people who have felt torn between their guilt about ruining the planet with their gas guzzling SUVs and buying an electric vehicle from a company whose founder--though he supports gay marriage, drug legalization, environment, immigration, science, etc--says snarky things on the Internet. They would leap at the opportunity to buy a large electric vehicle from a company whose founder merely bought a newspaper and used it to spread racist propaganda.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford#Antisemitism_and_Th...

At least in California, the fire code doesn't allow you to have a bank of batteries without building a dedicated room with active fire suppression for them. You need to prove (to your local fire department) that your array of batteries won't have a thermal runaway.

So, conveniently, the F-150 is a tested, self-enclosed array of batteries :).

Comparisons to developing countries usually forget about demand - the average electrical demand in a typical Indian home is hundreds of watts to a few kilowatts depending on how affluent the home is.

The average north american home has several kilowatts of connected loads, not to mention equipment that must run such as heating/cooling, large fridges and myriad electronics.

Banks of lead acid batteries can indeed work but they are large, may leak and always require some sort of hazard protection. You can get around all of this in a country with lax standards but are unlikely to do so in the west.

True. My parents actually have their apartment wired for "power groups that can run on inverter" and other power groups that will be without backup. Their power needs are substantially lower than an average American and European household. That is why I was wondering if this idea could be _scaled_ up.

I would not go around recommending anyone to buy Lead acid battery banks today. I'm in the midst of getting rid of the ones at my parents' too.

However, I found these LFP batteries where I live - NL for about 1K Euros [1] . They are 2.5KWh. Two or three of them and an inverter ought to be a good as reasonable backup for an American house dont you think? LFP batteries dont catch fire like the Li-Ion ones tend to. No worries about oil maintenance. They come with 10 years of warranty. What is a downside to this that I am missing?

[1] - https://greencell.global/en/lifepo4-batteries/4097-lifepo4-b...

It can certainly be scaled up, there are lots of models of 5 kwh lithium iron phosphate battery packs in server form factor for ~$1500-2000, 6 of those in a server rack and you have 30 kwh for ~$10k.

Oh wow that sounds like a great way to convince the wife to let me have that homelab :-) By any chance you have any links to share for my research?

This one’s pretty popular: https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepower4-lithium-battery-48...

And is made to work well with this kind of inverter: https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-6-5k-off-grid-inverter-6500ex...

(They have a smaller 3 kw inverter for about half the price)

Check out diysolar forum. Google it. Lots of very good information.

Also watch Will prowse on YouTube.

Seconding this, Will’s channel and forum are excellent.

Here's a nice overview of setting up a 30 kwh battery and inverters to charge/use them: https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/48v-complete-system-bluepr...

The only 2 disadvantages of LFP batteries are that they're a lot more expensive than lead-acid and heavier than Li-Ion for the same energy.

But they can withstand many more cycles than Li-Ion without wearing out. If you can afford LFP, they seem ideal for a home backup situation.

It might make sense to have both. Its rare to see a home backup system that has as much capacity as this truck. It'd effectively extend your home capacity and also provide a resource that could be charged away from home.

We don't have many grid outages here, but the ones that happen tend to happen around large weather disasters. Commercial areas, often with DCFC tend to get restored a little more quickly than more distant suburban residential power and tbh, most people aren't driving that much during those periods anyway.

It would be cool to drive this setup to my mom’s or a friend’s and just take their vehicle for the week. Sub them out as needed for a charge.

Would be cool if a mass grid failure resulted in a callout for electric cars to drive over to a community centre or whatever.

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