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Comment by phil21 | Hacker News Reader

I really liked the idea behind the Lightning - finally an EV that can be used as a whole-home battery backup. I've been looking for a semi-off-grid property (at least ability to disconnect from the grid and survive without noticing should there be an extended grid outage) and the Lightning announcement was exciting until you learned the specifics of it all.

Good idea, but the execution needed to be better. I hope more EVs come along that incorporate the whole "battery backup on wheels" idea that can integrate into a solar power setup easily and efficiently. Ideally have some static batteries installed at the property, and when the vehicle is plugged in it simply augments that battery storage to extend runtime.

Of course I assume the addressable market for folks like me is in the dozens, so I understand as an actual truck it more or less failed after talking to a few Truck Guys.

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I don't actually care about battery backup for my house. I have an $800 generator for that which is not tied to my truck being parked in front of the house.

I do want my pickup truck to be a good pickup truck, and the impression I get is that the Lightning is really an F150 and does a good job at that.

I ordered my ICE F150 in late 2022 (delivered in 2023), so don't plan to buy a new truck for another 7-9 years.

When I was ordering, the Lightnings were just not available. Even if they were, however, you can only get the Lightning in the crew cab short bed configuration with a 145" wheel base.

I wanted a 6.5' bed, so the Lightning doesn't offer that. For a classic F150, you can get 2 wheel base options with 3 different cab/bed combinations.

The frunk with lockable storage is actually a really attractive feature though in terms of carrying tools or other things you want secure and out of the weather.

I don't think anybody really needs to move around town their home battery backup weighing 4 tons... I mean, if storage is needed, I think getting static batteries should cost nowadays only a third of the price of a car, so while putting some energy in the car might be convenient, it cannot be the main solution to the home energy storage needs. (edited for typos)

For many people outages are infrequent enough and short enough that an EV could be their main solution for getting through them. Maybe a couple outages a year, usually at most a few hours, with maybe every few years one that lasts 12-24 hours.

Maybe Ford need to sell a cut-down version with a smaller battery alongside it. I thought the idea of powering work tools from the Lightning was good but I guess it may not match how people work.

I like the look of the upcoming Ford e-Transit Courier but it will be a lot more expensive than the ICE versions.

I was looking into the EV F150 for the same reason, albeit not very deeply. What were the issues you saw?

Cost by the time it came out for actual purchase was the first one. When it was announced the cost (as I recall it) seemed quite reasonable for the capabilities.

Then the inverter size was severely undersized with no real ability to power a full sized home without making large sacrifices. Around 9kw if I recall correctly, which means (for me at least) no running A/C and a large electric appliance at the same time like a dryer.

Then it required using Sunrun as the only system integrator - plus all their equipment. I guess this is to be expected, but I'd like to design my own system.

I'm in the same boat as you though - I never looked into beyond surface level since I have enough random projects to think about as it is, and no property yet to turn any research into a practical system.

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