Among the stories of tragedy from Hurricane Helene, there were some bright spots. They came in the form of scrappy videos posted to social media, showing homeowners plugging their electric vehicles into storm-hit homes to power vital appliances for themselves and their neighbors.
Many of these people seemed to be Ford F-150 Lightning owners who took advantage of the truck's vehicle-to-home charging feature as a means of keeping the lights on.
Vehicle-to-home charging, or V2H, uses bidirectional charging to feed an EV battery's power back into your house. For some EV owners, the two-way power option has already been a boon, as workers can use power tools in remote locations. But as extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, often causing our power grid to falter, emergency uses are becoming more common.
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"We powered ours and three of our neighbors' houses, fridges, freezers, device charging stations, and CPAP machines," one Lightning owner posted. "We've had power for all our own necessities for nearly three days, (even ran an AC at night) and still have 45% battery."
The news comes just as Ford has announced that anyone who purchases a qualifying EV will receive a free charger kit for their homes that enables bidirectional charging. Usually, the charger costs over $1,300.
The bidirectional trend has also been driven by people who charge their EVs at home cheaply during off-peak hours and then, with the right equipment, send that lower-cost energy to their homes when needed or sell that energy back to the grid in times of high demand. In theory, EV owners can use this strategy to make money — or at least put a major dent in their power bills.
Right now, though, not all EVs have the ability to charge homes. In addition to the Lightning and Tesla Cybertruck, some offerings from Genesis, Hyundai, Kia, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Chevrolet, Volkswagen, and Polestar are capable. Rivian recently announced that a new wall charger will allow V2H, and Tesla has suggested it will roll out bidirectional charging in more models next year.
In the meantime, homeowners in the aftermath of Helene and other storms are already seeing the benefits.
"As of 6am this morning we have dodged the worst of the storm here in Atlanta, knock on wood," an R1T owner commented on Reddit. "I ran the sump pump overnight off the outlet on the truck just in case power went out overnight. It ran on and off for 5 hours, 173 cycles, drained 1600 gallons and only used 1% of the power on the truck in that time."
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