Quick note for other owners of this car and those like it: at the end I mentioned "accessory mode" but I was talking about Utility Mode. You activate that through the infotainment screen and then the car should stay semi-awake until it runs down to 20%. From what I've seen, more stuff is active than when using the V2L adapter (and you can use HVAC as well - that mode is designed with camping in mind) so it _probably_ eats into the battery enough to make getting the adapter worth it if you don't already have it.
@@erics3596 Virtually nothing. Rivian rather unfortunately followed the Tesla playbook in several ways, including keeping a lot of systems alive when they don't otherwise need to be. Legacy automakers, on the other hand, actually turn the car *off* when you turn it off - which turns out to have some advantages! To Tesla's credit, they've gotten a lot better at this - and Rivian has a lot of catching up to do. But pretty much every EV made by a legacy automaker will open the high voltage battery contactors and go into the same extremely low-power state that a gas car does when it's not running.
@@TechnologyConnextras Good to hear - Rivian has consistently been pumping out updates to address the parasitic drain...but yes they have some way to go :)
Overall this is a massive improvement over a generator. My 5kw generator would have used about 8 gals of gas just to idle for 24 hours, let alone whatever loads I put on it. So, $30ish at current fuel rates. You used 8 kWh of electricity (at worst off the battery). So... what, $1 of electricity. That's amazing.
Would like to see real-world tests of such. I lived in Aussie outback without power in the 80's/90's, relying solely on generators. There was a main diesel basically size of a small car which ran full-tilt for maybe an hour a day and idle for several hours then off the rest of the time, and a backup little petrol genny size of a lawnmower. It's been 30 years so I can't recall numbers, but a jerry-can of fuel for each would last us a week.
honestly i think this is a really interesting demonstration of how much energy cars use, like wow those things are going through a lot just to carry a person or two around
And yet people (who hve never driven electric BTW) still go on about range and how you wont be able to use the radio etc on long trips, they have no idea how little power the accesories use vs the big electric motor. You might use 20-25kW or so per hour with the electric motor on longer high speed trips, if its cold and you need the heating on add another 1-2kW per hour for a heat pump. There is a lot of mis-information out there from people that have never driven a EV.
@@RandomNoob The biggest problem with EVs is going to massive battery disposal and cleanup from the extremely dangerous fires they produce when damaged. We haven't accounted for these costs, not even close, at this point.
Much like a bridge, most of the load is the vehicle itself. There's probably only a noticeable difference in performance if you load 5-6 people in there vs 1. But even then I doubt it'd affect the range much. Though the "you'll have to turn the radio/ac off!" Crowd makes me wonder how many of them ever rode in weak older cars where the difference from turning the ac off was actually noticeable. It's a solved problem in newer cars apparently thanks to computers and better design.
I actually had a 4 day power outage a couple weeks ago, in SW Michigan due to an ice storm. I have the Kia EV6 long range /w the official V2L adapter. My gas furnace was hard wired. So I converted it to a plug to have heat (blower is really the only load, not to bad on the battery. You may want to reconsider needing to leave for a winter outage). Almost a 100 year old house, so the insulation leaves a lot to be desired. I didn't run a stove, but did use my Jura Espresso machine as a heating load. Worked from home a couple days using a laptop and cell phone hotspot (couldn't be bothered to run another extension cord). I also got ~10-12% per day. Other neighborhoods got power back earlier, so could always go to an area /w quick charge to top it off if the outage was going to long.
You could also cut power usage by only heating one room with a space heater. Set it up as sort of a shelter room in case of the worst case scenario. I did that a few years back when my A/C failed in the middle of a hot Florida summer. I put a window A/C in the master bedroom and left the rest of the house alone. It worked and I was able to deal with the three hottest months of the year (90-95F with 90% humidity and a heat index of 100-115) without having to sweat to death. I only left the shelter room when I needed to get food from the kitchen. I also went 20+ years without heat in the house and did the same thing with space heaters.
I did similar Andrew. Rewired my furnace and plugged into my Ecoflow battery during the same outage, as I'm in SW Michigan too. Recharging the battery from my EV would be great! That's why my next EV must have 120/240V output!
@@mccalejk2 I've had that in my last 3 cars. It actually can trickle-drain, unless there's a way to turn it off. Personally, that's why I have an integrated 120/240 split-phase inverter separate from the charger. So the backfeed/generator mode is independent of the charger...and also I can use the inverter to power heavier loads without having to worry about surge-loads popping the breaker.
I'm in Quebec and we are just coming out of a nasty ice storm that cut out power to about half the city I live in. We were out of power for 48h. I had the foresight of getting a setup to run a 1000W inverter on the 12V circuit of a 30kW Nissan Leaf. The main goal is to keep internet going, have some computers, fridge, freezer, cpap. After this real life experience, we're adding a small space heater and an induction cooktop. I've learned a few valuable lessons: - If planning to recharge, go to the nearest charger and WAIT. First time I went driving and ended up going way further and lost a ton of the battery charge driving back. Yes, obvious in hindsight. - Test everything. Plug in the max it can handle and let it run for a long time (1h+) to test it. - Get actual numbers. I mainly used calculations and never really trialled it well. - Get a kill-a-watt and test all the loads to make sure you are working on actual numbers and guesses. Knowing will allow you to batter manage what you run on a very limited power budget. - The kill-a-watt let us know that the induction cooktops at
If you're gonna make this a long term plan assuming you own your place it's a good idea to install a small sub panel with your critical loads in it. I installed a 30 amp one that I can backfeed with a 20a inlet on the outside of the house. It's not huge but it has what we need, the fridge, living room (powers the router, TV, cell booster, stereo system) and the bathroom lights.
For your Kill-a-watt issue, they have a version with a battery backup... I use a watts-up-pro which has logging built in so that you can plug it in to a PC and get graphs of usage over time, it's a pretty nice device.
I believe mine is the P3, and saves the data so I can unplug it and plug it back in somewhere else to read it (which I do if it's in an awkward location).
@@marc.lepage Nope: their identification scheme is confusing. Mine says P3 on the front, which looks like a modelID, but p3international and model:P4400 are on the back. P3 alone doesn't guarantee memory. What's your model number?
I have a knockoff one (can't remember the name or be arsed to find it right now) that has a backup battery. Big Clive actually did a tear down on it (he had the European version which is identical except for the actual outlet) and found it to be quite accurate.
I recommend testing the furnace blower before an emergency. Many furnace control boards won’t operate if they detect an unbounded neutral to ground. This is an issue you can test for by putting your o scope probes on ground to neutral and a 2nd lead for ground to hot . (Floating neutral)
Careful with how you hook this up! Standard passive oscilloscopes have a common ground between the channels and earth ground on the AC cord. Plug this up wrong and you’ll fry your probes and scope!
@@IceArdor Yup, melted a probe in first year college thinking the two channels were independent. They were smart though, our first lab had us building our own probes from a few cheap parts. (Anything measured in that class was under 10 kHz, so cheap and dirty was good enough.) :-)
I had this problem with the small EcoFlow I use to buffer the 12V from my Tesla for this application. I used something called an "EZ Generator Switch" on the furnace side and had to rewire it to leave the neutral unswitched (bonded at the panel). It included instructions for this.
I'm honestly really glad you added the bit at the end about potentially driving the car into town where they still have power or using a fast charger to reset the battery. An electric car being a very portable battery in an emergency is a great thing. [Ideally one wouldn't stick around in the home for over a week in a power outage and have to refill, but still!]
Assuming the roads are travel-able. In case of a severe ice/snow storm, it might not be possible to get out for several days (as we experienced). But as he mentioned, he's good for 5 days easy in this case, so that's a non-issue.
@Josh Payne It's kind of a niche situation for sure, and he brought up correctly that winter outages are repaired much faster as emergencies. I live not that far away from rural areas, though, where power might not be repaired for a week or more after a strong summer storm. Driving 15-20 into town to fill up the home battery and pick up supplies would be a realistic solution to the problems posed there. Hopefully, the grid remains maintained and robust, but the EV as generator replacement seems to make sense.
actually solar or wind can in a emergency fill up the BEV but unless you're a farmer/stored a lot of gasoline normally you're stuck walking and waiting for the pumps to work at all and generally you're SOL, lost the debate with others vs my 1968 C10 chevy PTO gen-set
It would be interesting to test the battery percentage loss A) with no load but inverter running for long time B) high load for short time. That way you can find out if the car has high consumption by itself in active mode, or if the inverter has poor efficiency.
I'm also really curious about this. A random 2 kW inverter from a local store has a spec of >90% efficiency, so this measurement of close to 50% efficiency seems unusually bad
Exactly what I was thinking. If the inverter is just kinda garbage, it would be better to use vehicle power in high intensity bursts to heat a room with a space heater or cook a meal, and then go dark again. (Not great for the fridge, I guess, but whatever.) Though if they're gonna provide a garbage inverter, I'd rather they just give me access to the DC directly and let me supply appropriate hardware.
@@Keenath most inverters are sub 90% efficiency. That number drops even more when you run them outside of their peak load zone which is typically 30% of its nameplate. IE, a 1000w inverter is most efficient when supplying a 300w load. Less than 300w and it's horrifically bad. More than 300w and the efficiency slowly tapers the more the load goes up. Beyond that, there isn't just one conversion process at play here. The high voltage from the pack is going through a DC-DC converter first, dropping it to a usable voltage for the inverter. Just like any other electric conversion process, the greater the delta between input and output, the greater the efficiency loss. That is one drawback to 800v architecture. You have a massive delta between 800v and 120v, compared to a 400v architecture vehicle.
@@brandonk1163 Literally came to say this as well; the poor efficiency is most likely because it was below a wattage threshold where it takes a lot of power to have a small load.
@@brandonk1163 Ah, interesting. So that does argue for using power in spikes and then unplugging, and makes the V2L not great for continuous low-draw applications like a fridge.
That is pretty solid. I used my Jeep Grand Cherokee with a 800w inverter to keep the fridge running during one power outage, and on a tank of fuel I could not go that long, especially with how inefficient a ICE engine really is for energy production. Also bumping your fridge and freezer one notch warmer will still keep you in safe range while using less power as well, which can be handy for the summertime loads. Thanks for the time invested in this video, its definitely useful!
@@augustusomega4708 It is a useful specification, considering there are quite a few things that are I.C.E. like Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. So, using the I.C. Engine is technically more correct in this case.
@@augustusomega4708 .... Cars are not the only thing that is a vehicle that can have a IC Engine in them. Motorcycles, aircraft, boats, four-wheelers, and Golf carts can all fit in the category of ICE Vehicle.
@@TemporalandReaty its like nailing jello to a wall. If you dont wish to comprehend language logic, those problems are your own. My example does not limit the ICE car only to automobiles. ICE boat, ICE motorcycle etc.
To avoid the plugging/unplugging issue, there are powerstrips available that cut off one socket if the total power draw exceeds a certain number. It enables both sockets again after the power requirement drops very low. This is used for boilers and dryer/washing machines to operate from the same outlet. Dryer on = boiler off. They are very cheap, recently got one for 25€.
Yeah that's call load shed. It's common with RVs. They will shed things like water heaters or AC to run the microwave. Newer RVs are all digital and you can set what amperage your shore power is, and it will configure the load shed automatically.
This recalls the Green Acres TV series: Episode 9: “You Can’t Plug In A 2 With A 6” (Aired: 11/10/65). For those who ask, while I was around in 1965, too young to appreciate it until watching the reruns many years later.
Have a nearly identical Ioniq5 (just has the green/white interior instead). I bought the OEM V2L adapter from a Hyundai dealer because (for a short period of time) they had some sort of price issue and the price of the adapter dropped to $170 (current MSRP is $670). I’ve used it in a power outage to power a light, cable modem, TV, fridge and a space heater. It also powered a coffee pot while also powering the TV and cable modem. You do have to shuffle loads a bit when using things that generate heat (like a heater or cooking equipment) otherwise it has enough power output to run basically all of the lower power loads in your house simultaneously. I’ve also wired an appliance cable to my gas furnace so that from now on, I can use the car to power the gas furnace instead of needing a space heater since the furnace uses way less electricity. It is a fantastic feature. My partner was super skeptical when I bought the adapter, until it powered the house during a nearly 24hr outage. I’m glad you checked the power output with the oscope. I’ve been curious about that, although I assumed that the quality would be fairly decent since they don’t say anything about not plugging “sensitive electronics” into it. Was the picture taken with an electrical load on it or not? It’s also worth mentioning that any V2L use does not “only” use the OBC. It’s keeping the entire battery management system on because the OBC doesn’t manage the battery, it just steps up and rectifies the ACV to the correct DCV for the 800V battery, as well as a coolant pump for the OBC since the inverter does get warm. Also, any time the BMS is active, it turns on the DC-DC converter to power the vehicle’s 12V system.
This was really cool! An interesting addition might be a "combination regulator" (sorry can't find the correct English name) but it's basically a power strip with a primary and secondary socket. So you cook, and it will shut down the secondary freezer when necessary. (They are often used for washing machines and dryers in Europe, so they can share the same group)
I can't quite put my finger on why it is, but I love this video style. Something about it almost feels like I'm actually there with you and learning along with you at the same time.
I thought I'm the only one who also thinks that. It almost feels like I'm a guest and we were cooking together and also kinda reminded me of those times: czcams.com/users/shortsmeyt0MBWmuk
There has not been as video that I have not watched to the end, even if I was not initially intereted... I end up learning quite a bit and enjoy the process. Very down to earth and reasonable. Also he does as best as could be expected to account for peoples, "but this one time" and "but if"
And also, remember that the fridge and the freezer give you exactly 100% back in heat in the wintertime. Of course the same for summer time, but then you normally dont need that heat. They are just heatpumps and everything they consumeturns into heat inside your home. So camping out in the kitchen with all doors closed might not be all that bad.
The heat being pumped out of a fridge is heat that slowly entered the fridge from the surrounding room. Even if the fridge was room temperature to start, it would heat your kitchen less than 1 degree, in the process of cooling.
@@draeath but all that loss in efficiency is just heat. So even the losses are heating. Also you’d be able to heat your house by freezing water from the tap. That’s the power of heat pumps, pulling energy out of things where a natural temperature differential doesn’t exist.
31:57 the "lost" power is not only about keeping other care systems alive, but in the round trip loss in charging and discharging the battery. Also a full analysis would account for DC-AC conversion in the inverter, and whatever Voltage conversion is needed to match you local line Voltage
You may want to consider installing a manual transfer switch - where you can select specific loads and switch them from utility and emergency as needed. I've seen 6, 10, and 12 circuit versions. They wire directly to your electrical load center and make for a more permanent setup. Then this way, all you have to do is run one cord from the vehice to a power inlet in the garage. They are designed for 220V applications but can easily be retrofitted to run only 110V loads.
This really made me think about just how much power it takes to drive a car around versus just home stuff. Also a good reminder to avoid resistive heating whenever possible. BTW My neighborhood in Boston, Mass., gets a big power outage lasting 8-14 hours every year or two. The worst are when they bring in generators that torture us for a week and then require another 5+ hour outage to put us back on the grid.
That socket is outputting a tiny fraction of the power that the battery provides to the motor. The battery can easily put out 60kw but this style of converter can only do 1.8kw before it exceeds 15amps, which is what standard extension cords/powerstrips should be rated for when used in the home. Feels like the converter should have given you more than 1 outlet or the car should be able to output more power.
You can absolutely get more power out of an EV (like an F150 Lightning) - it depends completely on what system of inverters are included in the vehicle.
Which neighborhood is this? I lived in Cambridge for 3 years, JP for six years, and Watertown for about half a year; somehow I never had a power outage, even during the worst storms.
@@jbradleymusic JP, over the past 15 years or so. It seems to be this particular stretch along a busy street that has a lot of old wiring. But with *six* new luxury apartment & condo buildings going up around us hopefully that means they'll finally fix all of the old wiring by the time they're done.
Quick note re: the fridge at 12:40, Samsung refrigerators have a seven-minute delay in startup after a power outage, to avoid overloading the compressor (just in case it's a
@@davidwillmore I work at a cinema and have to empty dehumidifiers. The compressors on dehumidifiers also seem to have this delay. Is this because the high and low side pressure imbalance could potentially stall the compressor and burn up the windings?
I was the guy on mastodon that asked you about power to the furnace and while I'm also a northerner, I'm from the east coast. Every time anybody talks about power outages I have flashbacks to Sandy - 11 days without power in early November. A cold one, too. One funny thing about that was having people poo-poo-ing electric cars in the first day or two saying that if you'd gone electric you'd have no way to charge and no mobility. And then pretty soon EVERYBODY was stuck because we couldn't power the gas stations to pump the gas anyway, and trucks couldn't get in to restock.
A lot of people talk about EV like "what about a MASSIVE power outage ? you could not charge your car anywhere !" But at the same time gas pump would be off too ! (And I doubt that any "emergency fuel tank" would come arround to refill peoples car).
If everything was electric in our coming better world, there would still be fossil fuel powered generators (probably running on compressed gas). The world isn't going to give give up completely on fossil fuels because there are situations where they will be needed. But that doesn't make emergency power from cars with batteries unattractive. If I still had a fossil fuel generator and an electric car, I might choose to use the generator to charge up the car's battery periodically (during a really long outage) so they don't waste so much power keeping the generator idling. I don't think keeping a natural gas feed to the property is worthwhile if you've got let's say a 5 or 10 kilowatt generator available. I would restock the generator with deliverable gas. And I wouldn't want to maintain a house heating system based on piped-in natural gas.
If you properly combine this with one of those smart breaker boxes, I'm pretty sure you could have a setup where you can simply use your car as an UPS for your entire home. Which would be a very cool setup.
@@williamsanders6092 A homebrew box to do similar prioritized load-shedding on a smaller scale could be far more economical, though. Arduino or similar MCU, one more more current transformers, ADC board, relays & relay drivers, all feeding a set of labeled power outlets. For limited outputs, all could be built into a deeper-than-usual quad box. I've heard there are commerical products on the market for this, at least in certain countries, but have never seen one for sale.
@@jordanhazen7761 that is a rather dangerous idea. Electromechanical relays are not engineered to function as safety devices, and I would therefore not trust them for this task
@@horrorhotel1999 Ever looked inside an automatic transfer switch, or its equivalent within a UPS, or a data-center PDU with switchable outputs, or an elevator control panel? Relays everywhere, in far more critical roles than this would serve. What else would be used? Of course they need to be properly rated for the task in terms of contact voltage and current-break capacity, preferably with a significant safety margin. Also, a load-shed controller is not really a safety device - in the case where it failed to switch something off when it should, whether due to an undersized relay contact welding, software bug, etc, it just reverts to back to a dumb power strip again, and the upstream power feed would trip offline on overload, same as now.
I haven’t finished the video yet, but I would be interested to know what the idle wattage of the Inverter is. The 2 inverters that run my house each do up to 6500w and use 70w idle. For a whole day, that’s over 3KWH just so the inverters can be ready to power a big load. In the wintertime I use a small inverter, only 1100w to power my whole house, until I need to run the well pump or water heater. Then I need to switch to the big inverters. But the small 1100w inverter only uses 10w idle
everything i see just makes me want an electric vehicle even more... i can't wait to be able to get my own! all your videos on them have definitely been enlightening!
That's the idea, just the next thing to waste money and resources on. Electric cars aren't sustainable at all, so if you're thinking you're going to be environmentally conscious by picking a brand new EV, think again.
We've done this with out Bolt and a 2000 watt inverter. This was one of the reasons we went with individual 120v mini splits for each of our bedrooms; they only use about 300 watts to maintain temperature on either heating or cooling and we've run two of them at once off of the car with room left over for other things.
Very interesting video. What a nice feature of the Ioniq! I'm living in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. A few years ago, we had a microburst hit the power sub-station and nearby high-voltage lines for the immediate area. The power company predicted ~8-10 hours for restoration, so we waited it out. Then the estimate went to a full day, 2 days, then 3 days. Power came back just after the 4-day mark. We had to drive quite a way, but we found someplace that still had a generator available. We were able to power the essentials, including a space-heater, and charge our phones. If we had known the power would be out so long, we would have secured home and left. Having a car that could serve as a generator for a few days sure would have been nice in that situation.
If they had a 220v V2L adapter you could wire up a generator plug with the breaker lockout switch and run anything you keep a breaker on for. That's what I find interesting about the Lightning it has that plug in the bed and doesn't require the expensive transfer switch if you already have a generator plug.
Works in my setup but this costs more - I have 2 Ecoflow batteries and the 240V hub - connect that to generator outlet. Then to charge the batteries use the car V2L and do each battery at 800watts of charging or so. Has it's own issues though of course. But not being completed connected to the car is great - go to work - furnace, sump pump operate perfectly fine!
The problem with this is that the invertor in the car that powers the V2L is puny. And changing it to support higher power (say, 10kW) is not worth the expense. This should be offloaded out of the car, the invertor should be in the garage and it should connect directly to the high-voltage DC bus. This way you can easily provide 10-20kW of power, making it competitive with a house backup generator.
We just had a power outage for about ~6 days followed by another day a couple days after. We thankfully had a generator, and gas heat, so we did pretty well. However, that generator drone really gets to you, would love to be able to use something like this.
Great to hear that your winter was so mild. I grew up in Illinois and I felt like our winter this year in Denver was VERY Illinois like. Lots of gray skies, most of the winter was 25F or colder. Snow at least once a week and it never melted. -- Give me my mild winters back! lol
I hope this video gets people thinking about emergency preparedness and not in the insane way, but in the possible to happen way. That set up is all really handy for the electrical appliances, i still do like things like gas water heaters, gas heat, and gas stoves for this emergency scenario for redundancy in power sources. I do keep a mr buddy heater around as well. Fully electrified homes really do suffer from lack of redundancy without big generators or batteries, and this could help fill that gap. Owning one of those buddy heaters (or for the fancy an Aladdin lamp) and a coleman outdoor stove should be a must for electric homes. It could really save lives. I have a little lunch box style 18amp generator that weighs 20lb and runs all day on a gallon of gas i use for similar purposes as what you used the car for. A bit cheaper than a new car but if getting a car anyway something to consider. Hopefully this gets people thinking about being prepared. Those little generators are nice, quiet, affordable, and reliable but, and this is a big but where the car wins, requires additional maintenance a car doesn’t need. It needs to be run, oil changes, and the spare gas needs to be cycled out so it doesn’t go bad otherwise the day its needed it will be useless. In short I’m saying good to present the options and the fact you talked about this may very well mean this video saves someone’s life because they invest in providing the basics needed to have food and warmth in a power outage.
This is one of the wonders of modern power electronics, it's very easy to create reversible converters and jump between DC and AC or vice versa. Before high voltage semiconductors you would have had to have a DC motor turning an AC generator to be able to do this.
It’s interesting to observe that the maximum inverter output is “your” biggest issue. This really complicates things, with having to unplug and plug in various devices. A 120 volt 30A output would have been much easier to work with. For this system to really work for less nerdy people , we need the smart electric panel you discussed in a previous video. ❤
@@y0uRF4t3 If that's true, 3,500 watts is 3,500 watts, so the car's battery would drain 3.5 times as quickly at max power. Are you sure the car's electric generator system in Europe would allow 3,500 watts of load?
@@manitoba-op4jx Yeah Alec mentioned that at the end of the video. I think Ford mostly included that feature so they could market the lightening as replacing a generator on job sites. Iirc you can option it with a power panel in the bed that had the same connections as a beefy portable generator.
Thank you so much for making this video! I hadn't realized that you had (thanks to Transport Evolved for posting a link to it) done this experiment. I drive a Kia EV6 with the larger battery pack. I made sure to keep it charged to 100% every night in case of power outages the last week because of a wintry mix of ice/snow . Thankfully I didn't need to utilize the VTL function of the car but it is really great to know more or less what to expect if I need to. I have watched many of your videos but I will now subscribe to your channel.
I put a deposit on my Ioniq 5 a year ago - with the same paint as yours, so both my excitement and envy are quite high right now. I’m looking at having a transfer switch installed in my home, and the V2L adaptor will be a day 1 buy for me to be able to keep important circuits active in my home during outages. I’m looking forward to having some time to watch this whole video, even if it’s going to eat me up inside that I likely have to wait another _year_ before it arrives at this point (Hyundai seems to have reduced allotment to Canada in favour of the US market - hopefully some recent legislative changes will change that soon).
Having just been through a cyclone here in NZ where we had no power for nearly 36 hours, several suburbs were out for a week and some rural areas are still without power 4 weeks later - this sort of video is right up my line of future disaster planning :) I'm probably thinking something like panels + small battery bank + vehicle as supplementary emergency battery bank. It would be for running fridge, freezer & water heater plus air heating if there was a power cut during winter. And some of those loads could easily be cycled on / off in such a situation to reduce load or balance it to when generation is available to meet demand etc.
Flashbacks to Hurricane Isabel (2003) when I was without power for 4 weeks. Lived in a rural area at the time. If that were to happen today, I could see using the car to power essentials at home for a couple of days, then driving somewhere that had power and charging the car (not unlike driving an hour to somewhere with a working gas pump to get gas for the generator every few days back in '03).
lol, I used my 2015 Fiat 500e to power my refrigerator/freezer a couple led lights, and a fan for 3 days when we had no power after hurricane Irma way back in 2017. Using a 12VDC to 120VAC 800 watt inverter from its 12v system by cycling the car on and off every 3-4 hour hours to support the 12v battery. After the 3rd day I had to go back to work, which had power and I just disconnected this system and drove it to work and charged up for free. Came home and seti it all back up. I wish I had a simpler solution like this one at the time. I have since built a DIY solar generator. So, after Ian I ran it all from that. I discovered immediately 2 things: one it was excellent to know was it wasn't nearly as efficient as it could have been; but, it was doable and this would be a key feature of EVs in the future. The second and most important thing was, it was perfectly silent and stealthy. I realized I hated my neighbors' generators; because, they were so loud you could barely sleep.
Cool video! Samsung refrigerators have a major problem with the defrost drain and duckbill at the bottom becoming clogged or draining slow. The moisture blown out after defrost may be a sign that defrost water isn't draining well, sometimes this will turn into an ice ball forming by the evaporator fan blocking it from turning and causing poor cooling. Consider preemptively installing leakage kit DA82-01415A to prevent this.
Yep, it also doesn’t hurt to buy the kit with the longer thermocouples and move them as instructed, and I added about 8 inches of copper wire to the heater and dropped about 5 of it down the drain tube as well as the longer aluminum duckbill, added foil tape over a few areas to reflect the heat when it defrosts and help with heat transfer. Went from a yearly defrost that took a day to not doing it again for 3 years, the closest when during a very busy holiday season I ran a forced defrost so the tiny buzzing sound of the fan disappeared, also no more ice buildup under the drink drawer
@@Steevo69 He appears to have poor draining, not random blocks of ice forming and hitting his fan...yet. There isn't a need for changing thermistor location, installing the drain kit and cleaning the drain should be fine.
I watched this video with interest from South Africa, during loadshedding (scheduled blackouts). It's crazy that only one v2l ev is planned to be introduced here, namely the Kia EV6. We regularly have three 2-hour sessions of loadshedding per day, but sometimes we have 4-hour sessions. Often, unplanned outages (due to breakdowns, theft and vandalism) can last for 8 hours to several days. If our government just had the foresight to drop the 25% import duty on EVs!
We had a bad storm that knocked the power out for 18 hours. I used my Kia EV6 to power my TV and PS5 and played video games all day; it was great! Ended up using 4-6% of the battery.
Yay I've been waiting for this series! I have been really wanting to dial in my cook system and already this data is giving me ideas about how to proceed. I would particularly be interested in alternative fuel as well! Thanks for this deep dive, you make the most valuable content in backpacking. Ps this whole channel looks so expensive, can we help somehow?
Now what someone needs to make is a heavy duty power strip with programmable outlets. Outlets would have load limits and priorities. Then you plug everything in, and when the toaster oven kicks on (high priority) the freezer gets kicked out (low priority). Basically a mini load management center. BTW, that was something I was going to comment on in a previous video. The great state of Arizona does peak load billing. People out there have had load centers for YEARS to keep their bill from being astronomical for the 15 minutes that month that the dryer, oven, water heater, and house heater happened to kick on at the same time.
Load management? What are you talking about? Uninterrupted supply of 10 kW should not be the slightest problem for the battery, the only question is how powerful is your inverter.
Better check your math there, buddy. 10KW is 83 amps at 120V. Haven't seen many extension cords that can handle 10KW. With rare exceptions, extension cords are never rated for more than 1875 watts (15A at 120V, the limit of a typical outlet).
@@JCWren tolep said the _battery_ should be fine supplying 10kW and that the inverter is the problem. I agree with both statements. There's no reason a V2L inverter shouldn't be able to do 3600 watts. They'd just need to use a different plug.
@@eDoc2020 Whatever. I don't even see where I talked about battery or inverter capacity or how that factored in to the idea of a load shedding outlet strip.
Enjoyed this video. I welcome more tests with your car. Maybe a comparision to a common comparable dedicated home battery or battery bank would be interesting as well.
I have to say this is my favourite deep dive channel. One thing I have to say in a longer power outage I’d just keep the fridge and freezer going. The ready if user a camping stove. I’m in northern Canada I have lost power for a week after a bad storm but that’s why I also have a wood burning fireplace.
This is one of the big reasons why I can’t wait to get an EV, being able to run my fridge, some lights, and a cooktop during an outage without having to bother with a generator is going to be a major improvement. I’m also fortunate enough to live somewhere where our longest outage has been a handful of hours, so it will be **plenty** to survive. I have a secondhand generator I got for free currently and the downsides of dealing with the generator far outweigh any benefits it provides for me.
Why do you even need a generator if the longest outages are only a few hours? (I am asking as someone with basically 0 experience regarding outages. So it's an honest question :) )
@@Jehty21 TBH I don’t really, it was just free to me so I didn’t turn it down as a just-in-case measure if we lost power in the winter when it gets very cold here. My inlaws got a new one to replace the one they gave me because they live the next town over and don’t have a good utility company so they’re constantly having outages that are days long.
I'm glad to see a video like this because the value proposition of EVs that support V2G/V2L/V2H is quite good. For people who don't want to spend $20,000 adding only 10-15kWh of battery storage to their home solar system, using the battery you ALREADY OWN is just so... logical, not to mention bigger! Do you plan on installing a transfer switch? Sidebar: Is a battery technically a generator? This is one of those pedantic/semantic things I've taken umbrage with for a long time, but don't care enough about it to mention very often.
Since it can only output 15A, there's not much of a point installing a transfer switch. If I had a car which could support more output than it might be worth it, but honestly even if I did power outages are too infrequent for me to justify it.
@@TechnologyConnextras That makes sense. I glossed over that 15a limitation. I live in Santa Rosa, CA, where we are plagued not only with wildfires (and their public safety power shutoffs), but with grid capacity issues resulting in potential rolling blackouts. While my Tesla doesn’t support V2G/L/H I’m still happy I have a power source if I absolutely need it, via more hacky methods.
hmmmm that's an interesting question. my gut says no, a battery is not a generator. a battery works by splitting a redox reaction into two half cells, which are connected with an electrical load of your choice in between to force the electrons involved in the reaction into your device. a generator on the other hand works by using a combustion engine to spin a dynamo, and the combustion process involves... a redox reaction? huh. and when you consider that fuel cells for organic molecules (e.g. methanol) are currently being developed, and fuel cells (like electrochemical cells) split up a redox reaction to force electrons to go where you want them, that means that a battery is actually most comparable to a fuel cell, and a fuel cell is simply a better engine+dynamo combo, so by the transitive property a battery is like a generator but better.
@@TechnologyConnextras The F150 Lightning has a 120/240 V split phase output so installing a generator switch would make sense. You could power your house for a while.
Another advantage of V2H/V2L over something like a Powerwall is that your battery is mobile. If you know that a charger 50 km away is operational, you can power your home until you have 60 km of range left (or however much margin you want to leave), drive there and charge. When you return, you can go right back to powering your home again. If your household has two EVs, you can alternate depleting/charging them, so that there’s even less downtime.
I have 27kwh of backup batteries which has been easily more than enough during all the outages I've experienced, and that's powering 2 fridges, freezer, modem/router, and a furnace at the very least. Not to mention intermittent lights, computer, TV, garage door opener, etc. With the amount of power stored in an EV, you can probably stretch your energy incredibly far in an emergency situation. Such a great feature and I think every EV should be able to do this.
Hah I was thinking the whole time that it’s immaterial how much power it draws because you can drive somewhere and fast charge. I suppose in a borderline apocalyptic power outage that’s not an option, but most power outages don’t knock out entire cities or states or regions. I do still wish V2H was mandated by the charging plug standard because that would be a bit more convenient and solve the heating issue a lot easier, but I’m surprised at how usable even this 1800W supply is. With a higher supply, just about every home energy need could be satisfied for around a day using the car, or more if you’re careful about the usage. Thanks for doing this experiment, I’ve been curious about this since I learned of the capability and this is so cool to see
A much elegant and resilient solution is to keep a couple of deep cycle SLA batteries and an inverter to power blower motor of furnance. Then charge these batteries in a car or better yet 200W solar panels during the day time. Then you don't have to worry about the entire grid shutdown scenario. All of these can be gotten for less than $1000 (two 100 AH batteries, 1000W inverter, and 200W solar panels). Sounds expensive, but much cheaper than an EV with 120V outlet option. EV chargers won't work if entire grid shuts down for extended time.
The main problem with backfeeding through the EVSE, and into existing house wiring would be ensuring that the house is safely isolated from its utility provider, to avoid (best case) instantly overloading your inverter from trying to power an entire neighborhood, or (worst case) killing or injuring someone trying to repair downed lines that are suddenly no longer dead. Turning off the main breaker is usually enough, but you can't depend on customers reliably doing that, since it's not automatic or foolproof. So, liike with a conventional generator, some kind of transfer-switch arrangement would be needed. Depending on how the existing breaker panel is setup, this can be a difficult & expensive retrofit.
@@jordanhazen7761 Correct. Just remember to turn off main breaker switch when using backup power. If everyone did that, we woudln't need the damn transfer switch and expensive secondary panel.
@@i6power30 I did that for a few years, with remote inverter control at the panel and a posted checklist. Wouldn't be comfortable with it now, with kids & non-technical people in the house. Eventually just installed a subpanel next to the main & pulled most circuits over, taking advantage of the inverter's auto-transfer relay so it can serve as a (nearly) whole-house UPS.
I have done something similar with my Prius. The Prius has its 12V battery in the back with very easy to remove plastic panels over it and one small panel in particular that is the right size to stick large gauge wires through it. I only have a 600W pure sign inverter at this time as it was deemed adequate for the tasks at hand many years ago when I first set it up. At my current place I still cook with gas, so don't need that extra power for cooking. The essentials beyond cooking needs very little power, so this works out well. The Prius is not "efficient" per say when used this way, but compared to a regular gasoline generator, it is very efficient and very quiet, so really is is a rather ideal solution. The thing is the power is meant to be used in car mode driving around, so there is going to be some residual load used by systems optimized for high performance while the car is being driven around. In your case, you have the problem in that large inverters are just not very efficient at power conversions for small loads. The Prius is super efficient at converting energy from its high efficiency engine into electrical power that it then stuffs into its battery and then the engine is shut back off, saving tremendously on idling engine losses as the engine is never really ever idling. An all day use like this gets into the realm of a couple of bucks worth of gas used, which is amazing. Of course with a Prius, you need to make sure it is in a well ventilated place to do this and you have to leave the car in "READY" mode, so the car is ready to be driven around. So for example you open your garage door and have it ready to be driven off by someone in order to be used as a generator. Details. It would be nice if there was a plug-in hybrid electric truck with a generator mode. A truck with a large gas tank for towing and such should be able to last in generator mode for a long, long time. Another interesting use could be say for an apartment dweller who say has level 2 charging at work. When it comes time to vacuum out your car, just pull out this adapter and plug the vacuum cleaner into it.
Going through the 12v converter is fairly lossy. For a more ideal use you can get inverters which connect to the car's HV system. From user reports I've read using a Prius as a generator this way is about as efficient as a small inverter generator. And another plus compared to going through the 12v is you have much more power available.
@@eDoc2020 Yeah, I looked into this a long time ago. The Prius can generate up to 3kW sustained this way, plus higher short bursts out of the battery if needed. There are some catches to this. For one you need to be able and willing to connect directly to the battery relay terminal. Those bolts are on tight for a reason. This gets into doing some work and knowing what you are doing. The second is picking out your power conversion hardware. What I was thinking of doing in particular was to get a 2 kW Meanwell power supply with a 24V output. These are interesting because they are specifically rated for AC and DC input. This way no worries about burning out something as you hope you successfully end up bypassing the PFC and don't overload something by having the polarity going in always the same instead of its designed alternating design. Instead these Meanwell power supplies are specifically tested and rated for both AC and DC power input in the right voltage range. I had two reasons for 24V output. One is much smaller wire. Second I could use with my high powered hobby chargers directly and pull more power than I could pull off my 12V. I was even thinking about a high voltage DC extension cord while at the flying field because then I am operating in the pits / tables instead of directly out of the back of my car. However, I also had an LFP bike battery laying around. I ended up doing that instead and called it a day.
@@ChaJ67 There are inverters which will directly input the pack voltage and directly output 120 or 230 volts without an extra conversion stage. If you do go with a separate DC-DC supply feeding an inverter then it's probably better to do 48 volts. I would definitely avoid 24 volts if you plan to ever go over 2 kilowatts.
@@eDoc2020 I am aware of other, somewhat more exotic direct inverters. It is just my high powered hobby charger has a 30V input limit and a 1.3 kW max charge rate. Then I have a second charger that can do say 400 W, but usually this is used for small batteries, so its max rating doesn't matter as it never gets hit. If your main use is only going to be able to utilize up to a certain voltage, why go over it so you can be more efficient at a fringe usage? And for going over 2 kW, no need. That is just not something I am going to use my Prius for. It gets a lot more expensive real fast going over 2 kW and the car tops out at 3 kW of raw generation. I mean it makes more driving around with air being pushed through the radiator, but not sitting stationary. I think this gets back to another point, practicality. Hooking up a 12V pure sine inverter to a Prius is very easy and it is very cheap. It may not be the most efficient thing, but it is very easy to do and it is very cheap to do and that pure sine inverter can power 100% of your "roughing it" emergency needs. (MST cannot and can even damage some things, so beware.) You hook up to the traction battery and everything well it goes up a pay grade or two in multiple ways. A lot less people are going to bother with this. At that, say you are doing this in part because you have technical hobbies. You may be like me where you need 24V DC for some applications that needs more than 12V. So then you go down the 24V power supply route. It is just what that thought process tends to end up in because 24V is simply more useful to you than say 48V. Maybe you specifically need 48V for something, so you do the 48V conversion instead. The vast majority of people considering this though are going to have some 24V application and so that is where it is still at. So now you want a lot of power. Well maybe it is time to look beyond the Prius because it can only sustain 3 kW and it is nice to use your car for other things like driving around. So now you are no longer looking to the car as a power source. So while you could get one of those big, say 8 kW direct inverter / UPS deals I saw many years ago when I looked into this, you are probably just going with a different solution. Most at this point would just buy a gas generator because it is more versatile than using your Prius and it can sustain higher power loads than the Prius. Nothing in this high powered realm comes particularly cheap, but generators are produced in high volumes and everyone knows how to operated one, nothing special about setting up and getting it going and so it quickly becomes the no brainer go-to. While you could point to other vehicles and say this or that, focusing on the Prius, it is super easy to turn it into a low-end emergency generator and a generator for some other niche things, but this generator deal quickly falls apart when you try to scale it up and demand more out of it. You are hacking a functionality into a car not really designed for it. It just lends itself to some limited, but useful things in this realm.
Great demonstration as to the capabilities of a car battery. I would imagine if one lives in an area of frequent power outages and they have natural gas; a backup generator might be in order. For those who have more reliable power sources your showcase can point many in the right direction.
That final point about DC fast charging your car to bring back power for a week is incredible. Though I wonder the next time we get hit with a hard hurricane (NJ here) instead of there being lines in the gas station, the lines will be for the fast chargers.
The upside is we can spread chargers about much more liberally than petrol stations. I already saw some streets in the UK that have a charging plug or two in every lamp post. I dont think they were fast chargers, but still. So hopefully, in a decade or few people may be able to just drive to the next town or another part of the city, park wherever and get the power they need. Fast chargers are convenience but in an emergency, having a lot of slower outlets spread out all over the place might help a lot of people out.
Wow, I'm surprised by how much loss the Kill-A-Watt showed. I don't have much experience with consumer type inverters (I assume the car's charging system produces AC in the same way), but I thought the efficiency would be much better. Is that much inefficiency typical of all sine wave inverters? On a side note: Does anyone else find it amusing that we're talking car performance, in terms of "How many appliances can this baby run?", instead of "How fast can this baby run?". 😆 It's been fascinating to watch the technology that's driving EV development evolve and I'm excited to see where it takes us. Thanks for another great video, Alec!
Please make sure you use a 12AWG extension cord if you pull anywhere near 15A, the heat and voltage drop will be high. That lighted cord seems quite thin, like a 16 or 18AWG. 👍🤠
Battery backups are best for network equipment anyway. It ensures consistently during brownouts and short power outages which really are most power outages. I also found that it reduces noise on the line in some cases in buildings with bad wiring
Yes, but it's still highly amusing that a recloser doing its thing can throw the device into a factory default mode. Dumb design. Or does Com Ed have a vendetta against Starlink?
@@stevegeist3798 totally agree. Reset button/switches should be how that works. Just giving my two cents as a network engineer. UPSes saved my ass soooo many times
Seeing the Tillreda induction hob - have you considered opening it up and checking what diameter the coil inside is? For that matter, induction hobs, the diameter of coils inside, and how this affects heat distribution in pots and pans could be a good video topic.
A chest freezer when full can be off for a day or two with no danger of the food thawing. Also, I'd be interested in how the garage mini-split would heat the house if the door was left open. Perhaps not enough for furnace comfort levels but to keep pipes from freezing that are above ground. No need to nuke the butter-drain the veg, add the butter to the pan and let it melt that way, on low if needed. Sounds more efficient to me. As always, appreciate your attention to detail and dedication.
vehicle load to function is one of the reasons i have held off getting a battery backup system. its likely my next vehicle will be an EV and this being an option is something i'd be including in my lists
This is a super neat feature that I didn't know existed. To be fair, I didn't really look that hard, but still, it's very neat. I could see this being used (in conjunction with a manual transfer switch) to provide car-based emergency power for specific circuits (take a look at reliance controls wide lines of manual transfer switches). You could use one of their 30A switches (since you're limited to a single 110v leg) in order to switch over specific circuits in your house from utility feed to the car just by flipping a switch. After having gone through the Texas Snowpocalypse and never wanting to do that again, I'm looking at multiple power generating redundancies because we didn't have power for a week in an all electric apartment. Now we have a house with a NG generator, water heater, and furnace but I'm always looking to add to our existing configuration just in case.
@@Validole A lot of it did, but what remained functional was prioritized for residential over industrial service. Speaking with several of our neighbors on that, no one lost NG service during the freeze. Even then, the possibility of losing NG service warrants looking at other power generation/storage options (like solar, EV V2L, etc) especially since the Texas grid is so delicate.
@@adampope5107 Yeah I feel like Texans should spend less effort trying to improve their setup for outages, and more effort lobbying their government/administration to actually fix their grid.
I’m purely addicted to all of your content. To the point I rewatch stuff when I’m caught up. Cant wait to see the video you do on the ionic! Been watching for years. So glad you’re still at it.
That's a great feature! I recently rented a Tesla 3, cause it was the same rate as a regular car, so was kinda fun to try out as I've never touched an EV before. The most baffling part though was the sentry mode horfed up about as much power as this experiment here, leaving it parked a full day was like 9% of the charge. I get you wouldn't run that at your own home overnight if you had a garage, but yeesh. No wonder Avis had to sift though several dead Teslas in the back to find one to give me
If you own (rather than rent) you would generally have Sentry mode off when at home. I charged my 2020 Model S to 90% 3 days ago and I haven't driven it since. It is still at 90%.
Never believe the stated efficiency rating of an inverter. They are always the maximum efficiency under ideal conditions rarely seen in the real world.
Another factor contributing to the extra loss you experienced is the car systems you are "waking up" each time you open the car door. I once had to perform a "parasitic drain test" to determine why my 2011 Ford Flex's battery was dying so quickly. Following the instructions, I learned I had to be extremely careful not to open or close any door during the test because doing so woke up the car for anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. Waking the car and triggering extra load would prevent accurate results in my drain test. To prevent that, I used a screwdriver to flip the latching mechanism on the outer edge of the door to the closed position with the door open. (Of course, the door would not close because the latching mechanism would not mesh with the corresponding part on the door frame that holds the door shut in normal operation, so I needed to manually flip it back when I was done.) With the latch in the closed position, I then waited 60 minutes for the car's systems to go to sleep before beginning my parasitic drain test. You would possibly get a more efficient result with your vehicle-to-load test if you either didn't wake the car by opening and closing the door, or by flipping the latch to the closed position 1 hour before beginning your test and leaving the door open. I loved your video, and learn a lot watching all of your stuff!
IIRC, it was on your channel i saw that cool old EV. The motor controller handled running the motor, regen braking, charging AND inverter functions. That was super nifty because there's a lot of overlap in those functions and it should in theory be cheaper to wrap all those functions into a single unit rather than run seperate inverter\charger\motor controller.
We recently had a power outage here in southwestern PA that lasted about 13 hours for me due to a wind storm (it was a lot longer for some other people). It was around freezing outside and the temperature in my house dropped to about 61 overnight. I've been considering a EV for my next car and this is an interesting option if I could adapt my furnace and fridge/freezer to quickly plug in when the car is in the garage in case of emergencies.
We went to a UPS for our modems years ago because we work from home, and even just a few minutes of power is helpful to retain Internet while you shut things down and make other arrangements if needed.
I have a SAIC MG5 - all the MGs have V2L 😊. It gives up to 2.5kW from the CCS port using a special cable. Handy to power the household in an outage, or to vacuum the car outside without an extension cable! It has a 61kWHr battery so you can do a lot of cleaning!
I also have an MG5 57kWh usable. I’m current-ly using it for doing tumble drying. Just about to install a a Changeover switch to power a few circuits. I did test the 2.5kW limit and boiled a 2.8KW kettle whilst the 1.8KW tumble was running all good.
@@craggy4749 i made mine for my ZS with a 2k resistor which is the same as the official MG V2L adaptor, which we haven't got in NZ I did think about using a 470 but didnt eant to risk cooking the multiboard ive used with mine
for your finalized emergency power backup setup, might want a power strip that has individual on/off switches for each outlet. as well as the kill-a-watt meter plugged in next to the power strip instead of in the garage
As far as plugging in a lamp, I am a big fan of either USB battery night lights or camping lanterns. For a power outage, that would be one less cord to trip over, and they are generally convenient for night lights or desk lamps.
You can get a led lantern that runs in regular old alkaline batteries for about four dollars at Harbor Freight. We have two that we use when the power goes out. We also have some decorative led "candles" that run on batteries. Those became the go to during our frozen Tennessee Valley Authority Christmas. The led lantern was blinding unless we put some fabric over it.
It would be interesting to use a current clamp + properly rated voltmeter to measure power draw from the battery before the inverter and stuff. Maybe the car even reports that stuff through the diagnostic port so you wouldn't need to worry about dealing with the HV battery directly.
When you switched the Kill A Watt to Amps mode, I said to myself, "I know what this means. I saw Apollo 13 and I also vape." Anyway, great video as always. Thank you for these extra features and experiments. I love all your videos and you explain things in a fun way.
@@mrb692 In my limited experience with them, they can't reach higher temperatures that a standard oven can reach. Might as well just use it as a microwave.
@@davidmcgill1000 my convection toaster oven has the same temperature range as my oven, but if the combo microwave actually works equally well as a nuke and a convection toaster oven, then I can clear off some counter space. It’s just that usually you don’t get one gadget that does 2 things just as well as two standalone gadgets, but rather one gadget that does 2 things half as well.
@@mrb692 A toaster oven is different. They are just small ovens by themselves whether there is a fan or not. A combination microwave has two entirely different appliances built into it.
@@davidmcgill1000 Depends. For example my mom has one and you cannot bake cakes in it and even thicker pizza has a problem because the moisture gets trapped in the inside and the whole thing basically stays raw in the middle. I got another one (SHARP) and it works for frozen pizza well (never tried anything else and the pizza my mom made were thicker I think). But for for buns for example, it works very well.
I think this really is the game changer for Evs if your in an area with outages it's perfect. I have a generator only it'll only do 1kw. In the UK we don't have the massive usage you guys do we don't have acs for example and alot of people don't have large American style fridges. My house consumes between 7 and 10kwh. Day so I think could easily last a couple weeks on the car. So much uneccessary stuff plugged in that don't necessarily need .
That's fine and all but be realistic. That couple of weeks is if you don't cook, have led bulbs and barely have anything else plugged in. Many of those large fridges are actually more efficient than old school small fridges. I have been to many areas of the UK and have personally seen those large fridges and newer home appliances, some even opting for an induction top stove.
@@NeptuneSega most people in UK have a standard fridge. Yes people do have American fridges but in general normal fridges and not usually the size of the one in the video. My house is completely led every single light so that's not out of the question at all. As I stated I use 7-10kwh a day my oven is fully electric. Only thing we use gas is for hot water and heat. My fridges use less than 2 kWh a day all together I have two fridge freezers Nd a stand alone freezer.
The F150 Lightning can offboard 9 kW, at once, with the extended range option and 7 kW with the standard range option. Of course, the typical home uses around 2 to 4 kW at any time on average. With the "Intelligent Backup Power" system (grid safety disconnect and transfer switch, sold separately by other companies) you can use the Charge Station Pro and offboard power through the truck's charge port, as you were mentioning. But, with 8 standard outlets in the standard range option, and 11 outlets (1 is a 240v 30A outlet) in the extended range option, you can offboard 7 and 9 kW, respectively, through the outlets also. Moreover, the outlets in the bed are on their own circuit, and the outlets in the cab and frunk are on another circuit. Needless to say, there's no worry about power supply for all of one's needs with that great truck. Of course, there are many other reasons I love my F150 Lightning.
This is such a neat and useful feature, I wish my Volt had the feature OEM but you can hack it together with a 1500w inverter and by leaving the car on in hold mode, or alternatively you can switch it to mountain mode and then it'll pretty aggressively hold the same state of charge by starting the engine.
I agree, definitely should be a standard feature! It could literally be life-saving for some. Oh, on the topic of the fridge… always a good idea not to open it until you have power again, since it stays cool for a while, but opening the door just lets all the warm in. If you actually had a power outage, and were worried about it being a week or longer, you could definitely extend your power way further. Only plug in ABSOLUTE necessities, like the fridge; avoid cooking things where you can [or cook the quickest things], read physical books or an eReader by sunlight or a small LED torch… You were living a luxurious life with your test. [Nothing wrong with that, just saying, you were testing a “as close to regular life” scenario as you could, vs. emergency survival stretch as far as you can]
It would be really nice if the car was able to fully back feed into a NEMA14-50 outlet and power the whole house like a generator would rather than just giving a single phase 15A outlet. Your setup is great for short power outages in houses that don't have things to worry about like a well pump, or sump pumps to keep a basement dry. Unfortunately most power outages happen in inclement weather, so if you're in the middle of a heavy rain and the power goes out, any sump pumps you have will need to be powered if you don't want to flood. I'm also in the Chicago area and my power has been out for more than 24 hours every year for the past 3 years running now. The most recent one happened when we got that freezing rain, without a generator the basement would have flooded for sure. I'm super hopeful for the future of cars-as-emergency-backup technology, I definitely feel like there's plenty of room to improve and great strides have been made already!
The special bi-directional EVSE that's made for the Ford F-150 lightning can back feed the whole house, a lot of people I've talked to say that's the killer app for owning that truck, but it requires some pretty specialized wiring in order to make it function, not just a simple 240 volt circuit to the garage. I did in fact use my bolt EV to keep my sump pump going once a few years ago, I just hooked a 750 watt inverter to the 12 volt battery under the hood. With the car in neutral and the parking brake set, it would stay active continuously and provide power for that, I ran an extension cord from my garage to my basement. Not the most efficient set up in the world, but it worked.
That's where the ford's 14-30 plug is nice. It's relatively easy if you're comfortable with electricity to install a generator power inlet box and a circuit breaker interlock. My friend has a powerboost f150 with the 7.2kW pro power, and want's to put one in this summer.
Your Ryobi tools would also come in handy too in a real blackout because they've got batteries, and and with a torch (aka flashlight) or work lamp, you can eliminate the extra lamp in the bathroom (safer too since no trip hazard in the dark). Periodically recharge the ryobi batteries from the powerboard (aka strip) when required.
If you plan to do some more power usage tests, there are lots of plugs which support computer readout, so you can easier monitor these values. Combined then with an ODB readout of the car you could combine and graph these values ;-)
I think you'd need the car to be in a more "awake" state than used in this video for the ODB2 to function. That's provided you know which PIDs to monitor for the data as well - is that well known? I don't have an EV myself and when I had a Prius hybrid, the best I could figure out was overall battery health and an charge amount, both integers in the range of 0-100.
@@draeath why, would not necessarily think so. Anyhow, not expensive and easy to test and see if it works or not. There should be lots of tools which come with the proper mappings, so why should it be different for his car type. An other way could be some api or connected services from the car vender, so you might get that data from the cloud. Cars are more like a computer than a car being turned off. I had seen there are some physical OBD2 ports with Ethernet, …
@@MartinEKoch For OBD to be up, you'd need to at least have a CAN bus operating, wouldn't you? That would require at least one computer module to be awake enough to do it - it's not the sort of protocol that's low-energy friendly (ie you can't just poll every few seconds).
I think it would be interesting to take another 24-hour period and run a small fixed-wattage load (say a few watt LED light) and check the kill-a-watt usage vs. the battery % drop. I would guess most of the loss is just a fixed loss in the inverter per hour. Kind of a similar story with most UPSes.
I also live in the Chicago area in a suburb with underground utilities so power outages are fairly infrequent here since our power lines rarely get broken. Our longest outage was in the winter though. It was more than 12 hours but less than 24 hours. Our house got fairly chilly but not terrible.
I love this function. It is quite versatile, and as you say, I think every electric car should have this. It can be both used in emergencies, on offgrid camping as well as in extreme conditions like this past autumn and winter was in Europe in terms of electricity prices. I could see you using it to skip the higher spot price hours of electricity if it turns really bad, for example. I saw a guy who ran a circuit off to the side with blue painted outlets that only lead to a single inlet on the outside of the house, so that he would not need to hassle around with extensioncords through an open window or so, and risk tripping on cables. He'd just run a cable from his Ioniq 5, then plug whatever he needed to be powered into the blue outlets, like his mini split, fridge and so on. The European model actually for once gets the better deal here though, since it is 16A on 230V. This enables us to run really useful appliances, like air source heat pumps such as the common mini split units to heat a home, since this can be easily plugged in with a regular schuko plug. I wonder if in the future we could get the full three phase experience out of a V2L adapter?
Quick note for other owners of this car and those like it: at the end I mentioned "accessory mode" but I was talking about Utility Mode. You activate that through the infotainment screen and then the car should stay semi-awake until it runs down to 20%. From what I've seen, more stuff is active than when using the V2L adapter (and you can use HVAC as well - that mode is designed with camping in mind) so it _probably_ eats into the battery enough to make getting the adapter worth it if you don't already have it.
next go to public j1772 charger and use it to cook food. after all it's just normal ac power so it should work.😀
What are your normal parasitic losses on the car from it just sitting unplugged? My Rivian will lose 0.5-1% per day sitting unplugged in my garage
@@erics3596 Virtually nothing. Rivian rather unfortunately followed the Tesla playbook in several ways, including keeping a lot of systems alive when they don't otherwise need to be. Legacy automakers, on the other hand, actually turn the car *off* when you turn it off - which turns out to have some advantages!
To Tesla's credit, they've gotten a lot better at this - and Rivian has a lot of catching up to do. But pretty much every EV made by a legacy automaker will open the high voltage battery contactors and go into the same extremely low-power state that a gas car does when it's not running.
@@TechnologyConnextras Good to hear - Rivian has consistently been pumping out updates to address the parasitic drain...but yes they have some way to go :)
@@TechnologyConnextras congrats really nice looking mobile generator. Greetings from Asunción Paraguay
You could say you were connecting the technology together when plugging the coffee maker/toaster into the car!
That seems extra
He completely missed the opportunity for a "cars and coffee" reference. I was waiting for it but it never came.
@@TheVonMatrices To be fair, he is not a performing comedian.
@@ezraclark7904 ayyyy 😂
...and maybe added a reference to heat pumps and refrigerators
Overall this is a massive improvement over a generator. My 5kw generator would have used about 8 gals of gas just to idle for 24 hours, let alone whatever loads I put on it. So, $30ish at current fuel rates. You used 8 kWh of electricity (at worst off the battery). So... what, $1 of electricity. That's amazing.
But when your car battery goes dead your done for. A generator can be refilled and keep running continuously.
Sure, but the generator (petrol/diesel/gas) will run pretty much forever. Batteries in the car do degrade.
God damn, is electricity really that cheap overseas?
@@philipcooper8297 Battery degrade waayyyy slower than everyone saying, afeter 10 year they are still good
Would like to see real-world tests of such. I lived in Aussie outback without power in the 80's/90's, relying solely on generators. There was a main diesel basically size of a small car which ran full-tilt for maybe an hour a day and idle for several hours then off the rest of the time, and a backup little petrol genny size of a lawnmower. It's been 30 years so I can't recall numbers, but a jerry-can of fuel for each would last us a week.
honestly i think this is a really interesting demonstration of how much energy cars use, like wow those things are going through a lot just to carry a person or two around
And yet people (who hve never driven electric BTW) still go on about range and how you wont be able to use the radio etc on long trips, they have no idea how little power the accesories use vs the big electric motor.
You might use 20-25kW or so per hour with the electric motor on longer high speed trips, if its cold and you need the heating on add another 1-2kW per hour for a heat pump.
There is a lot of mis-information out there from people that have never driven a EV.
@@RandomNoob yes people don't understand instant power vs kWh
@@RandomNoob The biggest problem with EVs is going to massive battery disposal and cleanup from the extremely dangerous fires they produce when damaged. We haven't accounted for these costs, not even close, at this point.
Much like a bridge, most of the load is the vehicle itself. There's probably only a noticeable difference in performance if you load 5-6 people in there vs 1. But even then I doubt it'd affect the range much.
Though the "you'll have to turn the radio/ac off!" Crowd makes me wonder how many of them ever rode in weak older cars where the difference from turning the ac off was actually noticeable. It's a solved problem in newer cars apparently thanks to computers and better design.
Agreed, and EVs are already multiple times more efficient than regular gas cars!
I actually had a 4 day power outage a couple weeks ago, in SW Michigan due to an ice storm. I have the Kia EV6 long range /w the official V2L adapter. My gas furnace was hard wired. So I converted it to a plug to have heat (blower is really the only load, not to bad on the battery. You may want to reconsider needing to leave for a winter outage). Almost a 100 year old house, so the insulation leaves a lot to be desired. I didn't run a stove, but did use my Jura Espresso machine as a heating load. Worked from home a couple days using a laptop and cell phone hotspot (couldn't be bothered to run another extension cord). I also got ~10-12% per day. Other neighborhoods got power back earlier, so could always go to an area /w quick charge to top it off if the outage was going to long.
You could also cut power usage by only heating one room with a space heater. Set it up as sort of a shelter room in case of the worst case scenario. I did that a few years back when my A/C failed in the middle of a hot Florida summer. I put a window A/C in the master bedroom and left the rest of the house alone. It worked and I was able to deal with the three hottest months of the year (90-95F with 90% humidity and a heat index of 100-115) without having to sweat to death. I only left the shelter room when I needed to get food from the kitchen. I also went 20+ years without heat in the house and did the same thing with space heaters.
I did similar Andrew. Rewired my furnace and plugged into my Ecoflow battery during the same outage, as I'm in SW Michigan too. Recharging the battery from my EV would be great! That's why my next EV must have 120/240V output!
This has been very interesting! I agree that all EVs and PHEVs should have this feature.
Hey! Nice to see one of my favorite nerds following another :)
Better yet, just give everyone a 120volt outlet in the trunk that runs off of the batteries.
Which begs the question... how many Commodore 64s and CRT screens can you run with this setup??? 🤔😶😶😶🤣
@@mccalejk2 I've had that in my last 3 cars. It actually can trickle-drain, unless there's a way to turn it off.
Personally, that's why I have an integrated 120/240 split-phase inverter separate from the charger. So the backfeed/generator mode is independent of the charger...and also I can use the inverter to power heavier loads without having to worry about surge-loads popping the breaker.
What's even more neat is just having a generator running off of a more cost effective fossil fuel generator.
I'm in Quebec and we are just coming out of a nasty ice storm that cut out power to about half the city I live in. We were out of power for 48h.
I had the foresight of getting a setup to run a 1000W inverter on the 12V circuit of a 30kW Nissan Leaf. The main goal is to keep internet going, have some computers, fridge, freezer, cpap. After this real life experience, we're adding a small space heater and an induction cooktop.
I've learned a few valuable lessons:
- If planning to recharge, go to the nearest charger and WAIT. First time I went driving and ended up going way further and lost a ton of the battery charge driving back. Yes, obvious in hindsight.
- Test everything. Plug in the max it can handle and let it run for a long time (1h+) to test it.
- Get actual numbers. I mainly used calculations and never really trialled it well.
- Get a kill-a-watt and test all the loads to make sure you are working on actual numbers and guesses. Knowing will allow you to batter manage what you run on a very limited power budget.
- The kill-a-watt let us know that the induction cooktops at
If you're gonna make this a long term plan assuming you own your place it's a good idea to install a small sub panel with your critical loads in it. I installed a 30 amp one that I can backfeed with a 20a inlet on the outside of the house. It's not huge but it has what we need, the fridge, living room (powers the router, TV, cell booster, stereo system) and the bathroom lights.
If you go through this bother you might as well install a proper transfer switch so you can switch individual circuits to the external generator.
For your Kill-a-watt issue, they have a version with a battery backup... I use a watts-up-pro which has logging built in so that you can plug it in to a PC and get graphs of usage over time, it's a pretty nice device.
Well that sounds easier than cracking it open to add a super capacitor or battery, which is on the task list for mine.
I believe mine is the P3, and saves the data so I can unplug it and plug it back in somewhere else to read it (which I do if it's in an awkward location).
@@marc.lepage Nope: their identification scheme is confusing. Mine says P3 on the front, which looks like a modelID, but p3international and model:P4400 are on the back. P3 alone doesn't guarantee memory. What's your model number?
@@tactileslut Mine is a P3 International P4460.
I have a knockoff one (can't remember the name or be arsed to find it right now) that has a backup battery. Big Clive actually did a tear down on it (he had the European version which is identical except for the actual outlet) and found it to be quite accurate.
I recommend testing the furnace blower before an emergency. Many furnace control boards won’t operate if they detect an unbounded neutral to ground. This is an issue you can test for by putting your o scope probes on ground to neutral and a 2nd lead for ground to hot . (Floating neutral)
You can buy an adapter at any camping supply store....This is a common problem with RV generators.
I was unsuccessful powering my furnace for this very reason. See my comment above.
Careful with how you hook this up! Standard passive oscilloscopes have a common ground between the channels and earth ground on the AC cord. Plug this up wrong and you’ll fry your probes and scope!
@@IceArdor Yup, melted a probe in first year college thinking the two channels were independent. They were smart though, our first lab had us building our own probes from a few cheap parts. (Anything measured in that class was under 10 kHz, so cheap and dirty was good enough.) :-)
I had this problem with the small EcoFlow I use to buffer the 12V from my Tesla for this application. I used something called an "EZ Generator Switch" on the furnace side and had to rewire it to leave the neutral unswitched (bonded at the panel). It included instructions for this.
I'm honestly really glad you added the bit at the end about potentially driving the car into town where they still have power or using a fast charger to reset the battery. An electric car being a very portable battery in an emergency is a great thing. [Ideally one wouldn't stick around in the home for over a week in a power outage and have to refill, but still!]
Assuming the roads are travel-able. In case of a severe ice/snow storm, it might not be possible to get out for several days (as we experienced). But as he mentioned, he's good for 5 days easy in this case, so that's a non-issue.
@Josh Payne It's kind of a niche situation for sure, and he brought up correctly that winter outages are repaired much faster as emergencies. I live not that far away from rural areas, though, where power might not be repaired for a week or more after a strong summer storm. Driving 15-20 into town to fill up the home battery and pick up supplies would be a realistic solution to the problems posed there.
Hopefully, the grid remains maintained and robust, but the EV as generator replacement seems to make sense.
@@joshpayne4015 also in case of snow storms his setup would run even longer -> no need to run the refrigerator
actually solar or wind can in a emergency fill up the BEV but unless you're a farmer/stored a lot of gasoline normally you're stuck walking and waiting for the pumps to work at all and generally you're SOL, lost the debate with others vs my 1968 C10 chevy PTO gen-set
If you live alone, because if not the people staying at home will miss the generator driving away down the street!
It would be interesting to test the battery percentage loss A) with no load but inverter running for long time B) high load for short time. That way you can find out if the car has high consumption by itself in active mode, or if the inverter has poor efficiency.
I'm also really curious about this. A random 2 kW inverter from a local store has a spec of >90% efficiency, so this measurement of close to 50% efficiency seems unusually bad
Exactly what I was thinking. If the inverter is just kinda garbage, it would be better to use vehicle power in high intensity bursts to heat a room with a space heater or cook a meal, and then go dark again. (Not great for the fridge, I guess, but whatever.) Though if they're gonna provide a garbage inverter, I'd rather they just give me access to the DC directly and let me supply appropriate hardware.
@@Keenath most inverters are sub 90% efficiency. That number drops even more when you run them outside of their peak load zone which is typically 30% of its nameplate. IE, a 1000w inverter is most efficient when supplying a 300w load. Less than 300w and it's horrifically bad. More than 300w and the efficiency slowly tapers the more the load goes up.
Beyond that, there isn't just one conversion process at play here. The high voltage from the pack is going through a DC-DC converter first, dropping it to a usable voltage for the inverter.
Just like any other electric conversion process, the greater the delta between input and output, the greater the efficiency loss. That is one drawback to 800v architecture. You have a massive delta between 800v and 120v, compared to a 400v architecture vehicle.
@@brandonk1163 Literally came to say this as well; the poor efficiency is most likely because it was below a wattage threshold where it takes a lot of power to have a small load.
@@brandonk1163 Ah, interesting. So that does argue for using power in spikes and then unplugging, and makes the V2L not great for continuous low-draw applications like a fridge.
That is pretty solid. I used my Jeep Grand Cherokee with a 800w inverter to keep the fridge running during one power outage, and on a tank of fuel I could not go that long, especially with how inefficient a ICE engine really is for energy production.
Also bumping your fridge and freezer one notch warmer will still keep you in safe range while using less power as well, which can be handy for the summertime loads.
Thanks for the time invested in this video, its definitely useful!
ICE engine? so an "internal combustion engine" engine?
@@augustusomega4708 It is a useful specification, considering there are quite a few things that are I.C.E. like Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. So, using the I.C. Engine is technically more correct in this case.
@@TemporalandReaty ICE vehicle? ICE automobile....the designation is a type of engine in a what? a car. ICE car
@@augustusomega4708 .... Cars are not the only thing that is a vehicle that can have a IC Engine in them. Motorcycles, aircraft, boats, four-wheelers, and Golf carts can all fit in the category of ICE Vehicle.
@@TemporalandReaty its like nailing jello to a wall. If you dont wish to comprehend language logic, those problems are your own. My example does not limit the ICE car only to automobiles. ICE boat, ICE motorcycle etc.
To avoid the plugging/unplugging issue, there are powerstrips available that cut off one socket if the total power draw exceeds a certain number. It enables both sockets again after the power requirement drops very low. This is used for boilers and dryer/washing machines to operate from the same outlet. Dryer on = boiler off. They are very cheap, recently got one for 25€.
Wow that's cool. What are they called?
Yeah that's call load shed. It's common with RVs. They will shed things like water heaters or AC to run the microwave. Newer RVs are all digital and you can set what amperage your shore power is, and it will configure the load shed automatically.
Surprised he wouldnt have found something like this after his most recent video on the smart circuit breakers for homes that do the same thing.
@Tomwesstein ... Do you mean OTHER THAN a switch for each outlet... it's done automagically??? Cool idea. Can you point to it, please?
This recalls the Green Acres TV series: Episode 9: “You Can’t Plug In A 2 With A 6” (Aired: 11/10/65). For those who ask, while I was around in 1965, too young to appreciate it until watching the reruns many years later.
Have a nearly identical Ioniq5 (just has the green/white interior instead). I bought the OEM V2L adapter from a Hyundai dealer because (for a short period of time) they had some sort of price issue and the price of the adapter dropped to $170 (current MSRP is $670). I’ve used it in a power outage to power a light, cable modem, TV, fridge and a space heater. It also powered a coffee pot while also powering the TV and cable modem. You do have to shuffle loads a bit when using things that generate heat (like a heater or cooking equipment) otherwise it has enough power output to run basically all of the lower power loads in your house simultaneously. I’ve also wired an appliance cable to my gas furnace so that from now on, I can use the car to power the gas furnace instead of needing a space heater since the furnace uses way less electricity. It is a fantastic feature. My partner was super skeptical when I bought the adapter, until it powered the house during a nearly 24hr outage.
I’m glad you checked the power output with the oscope. I’ve been curious about that, although I assumed that the quality would be fairly decent since they don’t say anything about not plugging “sensitive electronics” into it. Was the picture taken with an electrical load on it or not?
It’s also worth mentioning that any V2L use does not “only” use the OBC. It’s keeping the entire battery management system on because the OBC doesn’t manage the battery, it just steps up and rectifies the ACV to the correct DCV for the 800V battery, as well as a coolant pump for the OBC since the inverter does get warm. Also, any time the BMS is active, it turns on the DC-DC converter to power the vehicle’s 12V system.
This was really cool! An interesting addition might be a "combination regulator" (sorry can't find the correct English name) but it's basically a power strip with a primary and secondary socket. So you cook, and it will shut down the secondary freezer when necessary. (They are often used for washing machines and dryers in Europe, so they can share the same group)
Not seen them in my European country, what is the name you know and in what country do they use that name?
I can't quite put my finger on why it is, but I love this video style. Something about it almost feels like I'm actually there with you and learning along with you at the same time.
I find the same, and I think it is the honesty.
I thought I'm the only one who also thinks that. It almost feels like I'm a guest and we were cooking together and also kinda reminded me of those times: czcams.com/users/shortsmeyt0MBWmuk
Good ol fashioned video-blog we love to see it
There has not been as video that I have not watched to the end, even if I was not initially intereted... I end up learning quite a bit and enjoy the process. Very down to earth and reasonable. Also he does as best as could be expected to account for peoples, "but this one time" and "but if"
A vlog?
And also, remember that the fridge and the freezer give you exactly 100% back in heat in the wintertime. Of course the same for summer time, but then you normally dont need that heat. They are just heatpumps and everything they consumeturns into heat inside your home. So camping out in the kitchen with all doors closed might not be all that bad.
The heat being pumped out of a fridge is heat that slowly entered the fridge from the surrounding room. Even if the fridge was room temperature to start, it would heat your kitchen less than 1 degree, in the process of cooling.
@@jarednotter1354 You do lose some energy in the process, the fridge isn't 100% efficient from the plug.
@@draeath but all that loss in efficiency is just heat. So even the losses are heating. Also you’d be able to heat your house by freezing water from the tap. That’s the power of heat pumps, pulling energy out of things where a natural temperature differential doesn’t exist.
@@matthewwilson4592 Yes, that was my point.
@@draeath make it clearer next time
31:57 the "lost" power is not only about keeping other care systems alive, but in the round trip loss in charging and discharging the battery. Also a full analysis would account for DC-AC conversion in the inverter, and whatever Voltage conversion is needed to match you local line Voltage
You may want to consider installing a manual transfer switch - where you can select specific loads and switch them from utility and emergency as needed. I've seen 6, 10, and 12 circuit versions. They wire directly to your electrical load center and make for a more permanent setup. Then this way, all you have to do is run one cord from the vehice to a power inlet in the garage. They are designed for 220V applications but can easily be retrofitted to run only 110V loads.
I did this with my Prius which I had an inverter for. Having the 120v in the house running without extension cords was amazing.
yep I have the same setup with my 2000 watt Honda generator
This really made me think about just how much power it takes to drive a car around versus just home stuff. Also a good reminder to avoid resistive heating whenever possible.
BTW My neighborhood in Boston, Mass., gets a big power outage lasting 8-14 hours every year or two. The worst are when they bring in generators that torture us for a week and then require another 5+ hour outage to put us back on the grid.
That socket is outputting a tiny fraction of the power that the battery provides to the motor. The battery can easily put out 60kw but this style of converter can only do 1.8kw before it exceeds 15amps, which is what standard extension cords/powerstrips should be rated for when used in the home. Feels like the converter should have given you more than 1 outlet or the car should be able to output more power.
You can absolutely get more power out of an EV (like an F150 Lightning) - it depends completely on what system of inverters are included in the vehicle.
Which neighborhood is this? I lived in Cambridge for 3 years, JP for six years, and Watertown for about half a year; somehow I never had a power outage, even during the worst storms.
An electric car not so much, about 15 to 20 kWh for 100 km. A gasoline powered car with fuel consumption of 10litres/100km means about 100kWh/100km...
@@jbradleymusic JP, over the past 15 years or so. It seems to be this particular stretch along a busy street that has a lot of old wiring.
But with *six* new luxury apartment & condo buildings going up around us hopefully that means they'll finally fix all of the old wiring by the time they're done.
"Messy garage" - hahahahahaha.
Seriously though:
"Messy garage"
"Has a car in it"
Choose 1.
@@theknee5590 buy a hydraulic lift. They have a way of keeping your parking spot open for you :)
Quick note re: the fridge at 12:40, Samsung refrigerators have a seven-minute delay in startup after a power outage, to avoid overloading the compressor (just in case it's a
As an ex appliance control engineer, this is standard across the industry.
@@davidwillmore I work at a cinema and have to empty dehumidifiers. The compressors on dehumidifiers also seem to have this delay. Is this because the high and low side pressure imbalance could potentially stall the compressor and burn up the windings?
@@aspecreviews that is correct.
You have some fantastic ideas, sir. I'm never disappointed when I wander on over to either of your channels.
I was the guy on mastodon that asked you about power to the furnace and while I'm also a northerner, I'm from the east coast. Every time anybody talks about power outages I have flashbacks to Sandy - 11 days without power in early November. A cold one, too.
One funny thing about that was having people poo-poo-ing electric cars in the first day or two saying that if you'd gone electric you'd have no way to charge and no mobility. And then pretty soon EVERYBODY was stuck because we couldn't power the gas stations to pump the gas anyway, and trucks couldn't get in to restock.
A lot of people talk about EV like "what about a MASSIVE power outage ? you could not charge your car anywhere !"
But at the same time gas pump would be off too ! (And I doubt that any "emergency fuel tank" would come arround to refill peoples car).
If everything was electric in our coming better world, there would still be fossil fuel powered generators (probably running on compressed gas). The world isn't going to give give up completely on fossil fuels because there are situations where they will be needed.
But that doesn't make emergency power from cars with batteries unattractive. If I still had a fossil fuel generator and an electric car, I might choose to use the generator to charge up the car's battery periodically (during a really long outage) so they don't waste so much power keeping the generator idling.
I don't think keeping a natural gas feed to the property is worthwhile if you've got let's say a 5 or 10 kilowatt generator available. I would restock the generator with deliverable gas. And I wouldn't want to maintain a house heating system based on piped-in natural gas.
@@tom-sn4gd You can drop a hand pump or even a bucket on a rope into the underground gas tank. Gas stations can run on generators.
If you properly combine this with one of those smart breaker boxes, I'm pretty sure you could have a setup where you can simply use your car as an UPS for your entire home.
Which would be a very cool setup.
smart breaker box $$$$$$
@@williamsanders6092 A homebrew box to do similar prioritized load-shedding on a smaller scale could be far more economical, though. Arduino or similar MCU, one more more current transformers, ADC board, relays & relay drivers, all feeding a set of labeled power outlets. For limited outputs, all could be built into a deeper-than-usual quad box. I've heard there are commerical products on the market for this, at least in certain countries, but have never seen one for sale.
For the 110V loads.
@@jordanhazen7761 that is a rather dangerous idea.
Electromechanical relays are not engineered to function as safety devices, and I would therefore not trust them for this task
@@horrorhotel1999 Ever looked inside an automatic transfer switch, or its equivalent within a UPS, or a data-center PDU with switchable outputs, or an elevator control panel? Relays everywhere, in far more critical roles than this would serve. What else would be used? Of course they need to be properly rated for the task in terms of contact voltage and current-break capacity, preferably with a significant safety margin. Also, a load-shed controller is not really a safety device - in the case where it failed to switch something off when it should, whether due to an undersized relay contact welding, software bug, etc, it just reverts to back to a dumb power strip again, and the upstream power feed would trip offline on overload, same as now.
Great test! You should also test the 120v outlet built into the car (interior) too, and see if the phantom load is more/less than the V2L method. ⚡👍
I haven’t finished the video yet, but I would be interested to know what the idle wattage of the Inverter is.
The 2 inverters that run my house each do up to 6500w and use 70w idle. For a whole day, that’s over 3KWH just so the inverters can be ready to power a big load.
In the wintertime I use a small inverter, only 1100w to power my whole house, until I need to run the well pump or water heater. Then I need to switch to the big inverters. But the small 1100w inverter only uses 10w idle
everything i see just makes me want an electric vehicle even more... i can't wait to be able to get my own! all your videos on them have definitely been enlightening!
That's the idea, just the next thing to waste money and resources on. Electric cars aren't sustainable at all, so if you're thinking you're going to be environmentally conscious by picking a brand new EV, think again.
@@tissuepaper9962 better than spewing carbon dioxide into the air just to go to work, lol
@@opalpersonal CO2 is already in the air and the plants and trees love it.
@@johnodonoghue651 lmao sure bud, have fun hatewatching an EV video for some reason
Alec: Extension cords are dangerous!
Also Alec: I'm going to run large appliances off extension cords!
All in good fun. Love the content.
I know you're making fun, but a refrigerator is only large in size :)
If we were to compare the electrical "largeness" of devices with physical size, hair dryers would all be larger than Princess Vespa's. (Spaceballs)
@@ToddVierling like the homonculus visualization of where the human brain dedicates nerves to
Also..
Alec: it's going to go under that door, cords going to get pitched but oh well.
The long cable looked beefy.
We've done this with out Bolt and a 2000 watt inverter. This was one of the reasons we went with individual 120v mini splits for each of our bedrooms; they only use about 300 watts to maintain temperature on either heating or cooling and we've run two of them at once off of the car with room left over for other things.
I assume you connected the inverter to the 12v battery and left the car on to recharge the 12v? No damage to the 12v after some time?
How much do ducted heat pumps use in comparison?
@@BakouMOH
If the Bolt shares the same equipment as the Volt, then the DC to DC converter would be 2,000 watts to charge the 12 Volt battery.
@@wzDH106 the Bolt uses a 1600w DC-DC converter.
That's what I did with my bolt for 3 days when a hurricane hit. Instead of mini-splits though, I used it for my fridge and freezer.
"C'mon Sam" made me spit beer all over my tablet. That was great, thank you for the laugh.
Very interesting video. What a nice feature of the Ioniq!
I'm living in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. A few years ago, we had a microburst hit the power sub-station and nearby high-voltage lines for the immediate area. The power company predicted ~8-10 hours for restoration, so we waited it out. Then the estimate went to a full day, 2 days, then 3 days. Power came back just after the 4-day mark.
We had to drive quite a way, but we found someplace that still had a generator available. We were able to power the essentials, including a space-heater, and charge our phones. If we had known the power would be out so long, we would have secured home and left.
Having a car that could serve as a generator for a few days sure would have been nice in that situation.
If they had a 220v V2L adapter you could wire up a generator plug with the breaker lockout switch and run anything you keep a breaker on for. That's what I find interesting about the Lightning it has that plug in the bed and doesn't require the expensive transfer switch if you already have a generator plug.
This is what I was hoping for as well. Maybe future generations. I think the lightning will support this though. And maybe the hybrid f150
Works in my setup but this costs more - I have 2 Ecoflow batteries and the 240V hub - connect that to generator outlet. Then to charge the batteries use the car V2L and do each battery at 800watts of charging or so. Has it's own issues though of course. But not being completed connected to the car is great - go to work - furnace, sump pump operate perfectly fine!
The problem with this is that the invertor in the car that powers the V2L is puny. And changing it to support higher power (say, 10kW) is not worth the expense. This should be offloaded out of the car, the invertor should be in the garage and it should connect directly to the high-voltage DC bus. This way you can easily provide 10-20kW of power, making it competitive with a house backup generator.
We just had a power outage for about ~6 days followed by another day a couple days after. We thankfully had a generator, and gas heat, so we did pretty well. However, that generator drone really gets to you, would love to be able to use something like this.
Great to hear that your winter was so mild. I grew up in Illinois and I felt like our winter this year in Denver was VERY Illinois like. Lots of gray skies, most of the winter was 25F or colder. Snow at least once a week and it never melted. -- Give me my mild winters back! lol
I hope this video gets people thinking about emergency preparedness and not in the insane way, but in the possible to happen way. That set up is all really handy for the electrical appliances, i still do like things like gas water heaters, gas heat, and gas stoves for this emergency scenario for redundancy in power sources. I do keep a mr buddy heater around as well. Fully electrified homes really do suffer from lack of redundancy without big generators or batteries, and this could help fill that gap. Owning one of those buddy heaters (or for the fancy an Aladdin lamp) and a coleman outdoor stove should be a must for electric homes. It could really save lives. I have a little lunch box style 18amp generator that weighs 20lb and runs all day on a gallon of gas i use for similar purposes as what you used the car for. A bit cheaper than a new car but if getting a car anyway something to consider. Hopefully this gets people thinking about being prepared. Those little generators are nice, quiet, affordable, and reliable but, and this is a big but where the car wins, requires additional maintenance a car doesn’t need. It needs to be run, oil changes, and the spare gas needs to be cycled out so it doesn’t go bad otherwise the day its needed it will be useless.
In short I’m saying good to present the options and the fact you talked about this may very well mean this video saves someone’s life because they invest in providing the basics needed to have food and warmth in a power outage.
This is one of the wonders of modern power electronics, it's very easy to create reversible converters and jump between DC and AC or vice versa. Before high voltage semiconductors you would have had to have a DC motor turning an AC generator to be able to do this.
It’s interesting to observe that the maximum inverter output is “your” biggest issue. This really complicates things, with having to unplug and plug in various devices. A 120 volt 30A output would have been much easier to work with.
For this system to really work for less nerdy people , we need the smart electric panel you discussed in a previous video. ❤
Yeah this is fairly limited compared to say the f150 lightening that can do 9.6 kw split phase.
@@mgkleym that's enough to hook it up in place of a generator and call it a day
In europe the ioniq 5 and ev6 output 3500W, because they output 240v AC here.
@@y0uRF4t3 If that's true, 3,500 watts is 3,500 watts, so the car's battery would drain 3.5 times as quickly at max power. Are you sure the car's electric generator system in Europe would allow 3,500 watts of load?
@@manitoba-op4jx Yeah Alec mentioned that at the end of the video. I think Ford mostly included that feature so they could market the lightening as replacing a generator on job sites. Iirc you can option it with a power panel in the bed that had the same connections as a beefy portable generator.
I very much enjoy your videos and your presence. Thanks :)
Thank you so much for making this video! I hadn't realized that you had (thanks to Transport Evolved for posting a link to it) done this experiment. I drive a Kia EV6 with the larger battery pack. I made sure to keep it charged to 100% every night in case of power outages the last week because of a wintry mix of ice/snow . Thankfully I didn't need to utilize the VTL function of the car but it is really great to know more or less what to expect if I need to. I have watched many of your videos but I will now subscribe to your channel.
I put a deposit on my Ioniq 5 a year ago - with the same paint as yours, so both my excitement and envy are quite high right now. I’m looking at having a transfer switch installed in my home, and the V2L adaptor will be a day 1 buy for me to be able to keep important circuits active in my home during outages. I’m looking forward to having some time to watch this whole video, even if it’s going to eat me up inside that I likely have to wait another _year_ before it arrives at this point (Hyundai seems to have reduced allotment to Canada in favour of the US market - hopefully some recent legislative changes will change that soon).
Having just been through a cyclone here in NZ where we had no power for nearly 36 hours, several suburbs were out for a week and some rural areas are still without power 4 weeks later - this sort of video is right up my line of future disaster planning :)
I'm probably thinking something like panels + small battery bank + vehicle as supplementary emergency battery bank. It would be for running fridge, freezer & water heater plus air heating if there was a power cut during winter. And some of those loads could easily be cycled on / off in such a situation to reduce load or balance it to when generation is available to meet demand etc.
I've definitely heard of a few people with MG ZS EVs and BYD Atto3s using the V2L during the cyclone
When it gets into weeks, maybe a gas powered generator is the solution, if you have gas from a pipe at the property.
@@razvanlex piped gas is not common in New Zealand
Flashbacks to Hurricane Isabel (2003) when I was without power for 4 weeks. Lived in a rural area at the time. If that were to happen today, I could see using the car to power essentials at home for a couple of days, then driving somewhere that had power and charging the car (not unlike driving an hour to somewhere with a working gas pump to get gas for the generator every few days back in '03).
I've been really curious about the capabilities of doing this, so thank you!
lol, I used my 2015 Fiat 500e to power my refrigerator/freezer a couple led lights, and a fan for 3 days when we had no power after hurricane Irma way back in 2017. Using a 12VDC to 120VAC 800 watt inverter from its 12v system by cycling the car on and off every 3-4 hour hours to support the 12v battery. After the 3rd day I had to go back to work, which had power and I just disconnected this system and drove it to work and charged up for free. Came home and seti it all back up. I wish I had a simpler solution like this one at the time. I have since built a DIY solar generator. So, after Ian I ran it all from that.
I discovered immediately 2 things: one it was excellent to know was it wasn't nearly as efficient as it could have been; but, it was doable and this would be a key feature of EVs in the future. The second and most important thing was, it was perfectly silent and stealthy.
I realized I hated my neighbors' generators; because, they were so loud you could barely sleep.
Cool video! Samsung refrigerators have a major problem with the defrost drain and duckbill at the bottom becoming clogged or draining slow. The moisture blown out after defrost may be a sign that defrost water isn't draining well, sometimes this will turn into an ice ball forming by the evaporator fan blocking it from turning and causing poor cooling. Consider preemptively installing leakage kit DA82-01415A to prevent this.
Yep, it also doesn’t hurt to buy the kit with the longer thermocouples and move them as instructed, and I added about 8 inches of copper wire to the heater and dropped about 5 of it down the drain tube as well as the longer aluminum duckbill, added foil tape over a few areas to reflect the heat when it defrosts and help with heat transfer. Went from a yearly defrost that took a day to not doing it again for 3 years, the closest when during a very busy holiday season I ran a forced defrost so the tiny buzzing sound of the fan disappeared, also no more ice buildup under the drink drawer
@@Steevo69 He appears to have poor draining, not random blocks of ice forming and hitting his fan...yet. There isn't a need for changing thermistor location, installing the drain kit and cleaning the drain should be fine.
I watched this video with interest from South Africa, during loadshedding (scheduled blackouts). It's crazy that only one v2l ev is planned to be introduced here, namely the Kia EV6. We regularly have three 2-hour sessions of loadshedding per day, but sometimes we have 4-hour sessions. Often, unplanned outages (due to breakdowns, theft and vandalism) can last for 8 hours to several days. If our government just had the foresight to drop the 25% import duty on EVs!
I can't remember loadshedding when I lived in South Africa in the 80s.
@@Okurka. my understanding is that the utility has been poorly run in recent years, and hasn't kept up with demand increases.
@@Okurka. Yes, back then we used to have surplus electricity.
@@szurketaltos2693 That's true, but you are putting it very diplomatically. 😏
We had a bad storm that knocked the power out for 18 hours. I used my Kia EV6 to power my TV and PS5 and played video games all day; it was great! Ended up using 4-6% of the battery.
Yay I've been waiting for this series! I have been really wanting to dial in my cook system and already this data is giving me ideas about how to proceed. I would particularly be interested in alternative fuel as well! Thanks for this deep dive, you make the most valuable content in backpacking.
Ps this whole channel looks so expensive, can we help somehow?
Now what someone needs to make is a heavy duty power strip with programmable outlets. Outlets would have load limits and priorities. Then you plug everything in, and when the toaster oven kicks on (high priority) the freezer gets kicked out (low priority). Basically a mini load management center. BTW, that was something I was going to comment on in a previous video. The great state of Arizona does peak load billing. People out there have had load centers for YEARS to keep their bill from being astronomical for the 15 minutes that month that the dryer, oven, water heater, and house heater happened to kick on at the same time.
Load management? What are you talking about?
Uninterrupted supply of 10 kW should not be the slightest problem for the battery, the only question is how powerful is your inverter.
Better check your math there, buddy. 10KW is 83 amps at 120V. Haven't seen many extension cords that can handle 10KW. With rare exceptions, extension cords are never rated for more than 1875 watts (15A at 120V, the limit of a typical outlet).
@@JCWren tolep said the _battery_ should be fine supplying 10kW and that the inverter is the problem. I agree with both statements. There's no reason a V2L inverter shouldn't be able to do 3600 watts. They'd just need to use a different plug.
@@eDoc2020 Whatever. I don't even see where I talked about battery or inverter capacity or how that factored in to the idea of a load shedding outlet strip.
Enjoyed this video. I welcome more tests with your car. Maybe a comparision to a common comparable dedicated home battery or battery bank would be interesting as well.
I have to say this is my favourite deep dive channel. One thing I have to say in a longer power outage I’d just keep the fridge and freezer going. The ready if user a camping stove. I’m in northern Canada I have lost power for a week after a bad storm but that’s why I also have a wood burning fireplace.
You have NO IDEA what a messy garage is.
Nice vid 🤙
This is one of the big reasons why I can’t wait to get an EV, being able to run my fridge, some lights, and a cooktop during an outage without having to bother with a generator is going to be a major improvement. I’m also fortunate enough to live somewhere where our longest outage has been a handful of hours, so it will be **plenty** to survive. I have a secondhand generator I got for free currently and the downsides of dealing with the generator far outweigh any benefits it provides for me.
Great sarcasm
@@DrLoverLover Oh no, not sarcasm, generators legitimately suck to have to deal with.
Why do you even need a generator if the longest outages are only a few hours?
(I am asking as someone with basically 0 experience regarding outages. So it's an honest question :) )
@@Jehty21 TBH I don’t really, it was just free to me so I didn’t turn it down as a just-in-case measure if we lost power in the winter when it gets very cold here. My inlaws got a new one to replace the one they gave me because they live the next town over and don’t have a good utility company so they’re constantly having outages that are days long.
I'm glad to see a video like this because the value proposition of EVs that support V2G/V2L/V2H is quite good. For people who don't want to spend $20,000 adding only 10-15kWh of battery storage to their home solar system, using the battery you ALREADY OWN is just so... logical, not to mention bigger! Do you plan on installing a transfer switch? Sidebar: Is a battery technically a generator? This is one of those pedantic/semantic things I've taken umbrage with for a long time, but don't care enough about it to mention very often.
Since it can only output 15A, there's not much of a point installing a transfer switch. If I had a car which could support more output than it might be worth it, but honestly even if I did power outages are too infrequent for me to justify it.
@@TechnologyConnextras That makes sense. I glossed over that 15a limitation. I live in Santa Rosa, CA, where we are plagued not only with wildfires (and their public safety power shutoffs), but with grid capacity issues resulting in potential rolling blackouts. While my Tesla doesn’t support V2G/L/H I’m still happy I have a power source if I absolutely need it, via more hacky methods.
hmmmm that's an interesting question. my gut says no, a battery is not a generator. a battery works by splitting a redox reaction into two half cells, which are connected with an electrical load of your choice in between to force the electrons involved in the reaction into your device. a generator on the other hand works by using a combustion engine to spin a dynamo, and the combustion process involves... a redox reaction? huh.
and when you consider that fuel cells for organic molecules (e.g. methanol) are currently being developed, and fuel cells (like electrochemical cells) split up a redox reaction to force electrons to go where you want them, that means that a battery is actually most comparable to a fuel cell, and a fuel cell is simply a better engine+dynamo combo, so by the transitive property a battery is like a generator but better.
@@TechnologyConnextras The F150 Lightning has a 120/240 V split phase output so installing a generator switch would make sense. You could power your house for a while.
Another advantage of V2H/V2L over something like a Powerwall is that your battery is mobile. If you know that a charger 50 km away is operational, you can power your home until you have 60 km of range left (or however much margin you want to leave), drive there and charge. When you return, you can go right back to powering your home again. If your household has two EVs, you can alternate depleting/charging them, so that there’s even less downtime.
I have 27kwh of backup batteries which has been easily more than enough during all the outages I've experienced, and that's powering 2 fridges, freezer, modem/router, and a furnace at the very least. Not to mention intermittent lights, computer, TV, garage door opener, etc.
With the amount of power stored in an EV, you can probably stretch your energy incredibly far in an emergency situation. Such a great feature and I think every EV should be able to do this.
My left ear loved the dinner test 😂. Love the vid as always
Hah I was thinking the whole time that it’s immaterial how much power it draws because you can drive somewhere and fast charge. I suppose in a borderline apocalyptic power outage that’s not an option, but most power outages don’t knock out entire cities or states or regions.
I do still wish V2H was mandated by the charging plug standard because that would be a bit more convenient and solve the heating issue a lot easier, but I’m surprised at how usable even this 1800W supply is. With a higher supply, just about every home energy need could be satisfied for around a day using the car, or more if you’re careful about the usage.
Thanks for doing this experiment, I’ve been curious about this since I learned of the capability and this is so cool to see
A much elegant and resilient solution is to keep a couple of deep cycle SLA batteries and an inverter to power blower motor of furnance. Then charge these batteries in a car or better yet 200W solar panels during the day time. Then you don't have to worry about the entire grid shutdown scenario. All of these can be gotten for less than $1000 (two 100 AH batteries, 1000W inverter, and 200W solar panels). Sounds expensive, but much cheaper than an EV with 120V outlet option. EV chargers won't work if entire grid shuts down for extended time.
The main problem with backfeeding through the EVSE, and into existing house wiring would be ensuring that the house is safely isolated from its utility provider, to avoid (best case) instantly overloading your inverter from trying to power an entire neighborhood, or (worst case) killing or injuring someone trying to repair downed lines that are suddenly no longer dead. Turning off the main breaker is usually enough, but you can't depend on customers reliably doing that, since it's not automatic or foolproof. So, liike with a conventional generator, some kind of transfer-switch arrangement would be needed. Depending on how the existing breaker panel is setup, this can be a difficult & expensive retrofit.
@@jordanhazen7761 Correct. Just remember to turn off main breaker switch when using backup power. If everyone did that, we woudln't need the damn transfer switch and expensive secondary panel.
@@i6power30 I did that for a few years, with remote inverter control at the panel and a posted checklist. Wouldn't be comfortable with it now, with kids & non-technical people in the house. Eventually just installed a subpanel next to the main & pulled most circuits over, taking advantage of the inverter's auto-transfer relay so it can serve as a (nearly) whole-house UPS.
I have done something similar with my Prius. The Prius has its 12V battery in the back with very easy to remove plastic panels over it and one small panel in particular that is the right size to stick large gauge wires through it. I only have a 600W pure sign inverter at this time as it was deemed adequate for the tasks at hand many years ago when I first set it up. At my current place I still cook with gas, so don't need that extra power for cooking. The essentials beyond cooking needs very little power, so this works out well.
The Prius is not "efficient" per say when used this way, but compared to a regular gasoline generator, it is very efficient and very quiet, so really is is a rather ideal solution. The thing is the power is meant to be used in car mode driving around, so there is going to be some residual load used by systems optimized for high performance while the car is being driven around. In your case, you have the problem in that large inverters are just not very efficient at power conversions for small loads. The Prius is super efficient at converting energy from its high efficiency engine into electrical power that it then stuffs into its battery and then the engine is shut back off, saving tremendously on idling engine losses as the engine is never really ever idling. An all day use like this gets into the realm of a couple of bucks worth of gas used, which is amazing. Of course with a Prius, you need to make sure it is in a well ventilated place to do this and you have to leave the car in "READY" mode, so the car is ready to be driven around. So for example you open your garage door and have it ready to be driven off by someone in order to be used as a generator. Details.
It would be nice if there was a plug-in hybrid electric truck with a generator mode. A truck with a large gas tank for towing and such should be able to last in generator mode for a long, long time.
Another interesting use could be say for an apartment dweller who say has level 2 charging at work. When it comes time to vacuum out your car, just pull out this adapter and plug the vacuum cleaner into it.
The Ford F-150 hybrid is close to what you're asking for. It's got a 7.4kW inverter and 120V outlets in the bed. It's not plug in though.
Going through the 12v converter is fairly lossy. For a more ideal use you can get inverters which connect to the car's HV system. From user reports I've read using a Prius as a generator this way is about as efficient as a small inverter generator. And another plus compared to going through the 12v is you have much more power available.
@@eDoc2020 Yeah, I looked into this a long time ago. The Prius can generate up to 3kW sustained this way, plus higher short bursts out of the battery if needed. There are some catches to this.
For one you need to be able and willing to connect directly to the battery relay terminal. Those bolts are on tight for a reason. This gets into doing some work and knowing what you are doing.
The second is picking out your power conversion hardware. What I was thinking of doing in particular was to get a 2 kW Meanwell power supply with a 24V output. These are interesting because they are specifically rated for AC and DC input. This way no worries about burning out something as you hope you successfully end up bypassing the PFC and don't overload something by having the polarity going in always the same instead of its designed alternating design. Instead these Meanwell power supplies are specifically tested and rated for both AC and DC power input in the right voltage range.
I had two reasons for 24V output. One is much smaller wire. Second I could use with my high powered hobby chargers directly and pull more power than I could pull off my 12V. I was even thinking about a high voltage DC extension cord while at the flying field because then I am operating in the pits / tables instead of directly out of the back of my car. However, I also had an LFP bike battery laying around. I ended up doing that instead and called it a day.
@@ChaJ67 There are inverters which will directly input the pack voltage and directly output 120 or 230 volts without an extra conversion stage.
If you do go with a separate DC-DC supply feeding an inverter then it's probably better to do 48 volts. I would definitely avoid 24 volts if you plan to ever go over 2 kilowatts.
@@eDoc2020 I am aware of other, somewhat more exotic direct inverters. It is just my high powered hobby charger has a 30V input limit and a 1.3 kW max charge rate. Then I have a second charger that can do say 400 W, but usually this is used for small batteries, so its max rating doesn't matter as it never gets hit. If your main use is only going to be able to utilize up to a certain voltage, why go over it so you can be more efficient at a fringe usage?
And for going over 2 kW, no need. That is just not something I am going to use my Prius for. It gets a lot more expensive real fast going over 2 kW and the car tops out at 3 kW of raw generation. I mean it makes more driving around with air being pushed through the radiator, but not sitting stationary.
I think this gets back to another point, practicality. Hooking up a 12V pure sine inverter to a Prius is very easy and it is very cheap. It may not be the most efficient thing, but it is very easy to do and it is very cheap to do and that pure sine inverter can power 100% of your "roughing it" emergency needs. (MST cannot and can even damage some things, so beware.) You hook up to the traction battery and everything well it goes up a pay grade or two in multiple ways. A lot less people are going to bother with this. At that, say you are doing this in part because you have technical hobbies. You may be like me where you need 24V DC for some applications that needs more than 12V. So then you go down the 24V power supply route. It is just what that thought process tends to end up in because 24V is simply more useful to you than say 48V. Maybe you specifically need 48V for something, so you do the 48V conversion instead. The vast majority of people considering this though are going to have some 24V application and so that is where it is still at.
So now you want a lot of power. Well maybe it is time to look beyond the Prius because it can only sustain 3 kW and it is nice to use your car for other things like driving around. So now you are no longer looking to the car as a power source. So while you could get one of those big, say 8 kW direct inverter / UPS deals I saw many years ago when I looked into this, you are probably just going with a different solution. Most at this point would just buy a gas generator because it is more versatile than using your Prius and it can sustain higher power loads than the Prius. Nothing in this high powered realm comes particularly cheap, but generators are produced in high volumes and everyone knows how to operated one, nothing special about setting up and getting it going and so it quickly becomes the no brainer go-to.
While you could point to other vehicles and say this or that, focusing on the Prius, it is super easy to turn it into a low-end emergency generator and a generator for some other niche things, but this generator deal quickly falls apart when you try to scale it up and demand more out of it. You are hacking a functionality into a car not really designed for it. It just lends itself to some limited, but useful things in this realm.
Great demonstration as to the capabilities of a car battery. I would imagine if one lives in an area of frequent power outages and they have natural gas; a backup generator might be in order. For those who have more reliable power sources your showcase can point many in the right direction.
That was a great demonstration! Very informative!
Is that a giant Pizza John car windshield sun shade? 🍕
That was the first thing I spotted.
Hadn't seen many people mention the Pizza John, guess there isn't much of a crossover!
That final point about DC fast charging your car to bring back power for a week is incredible.
Though I wonder the next time we get hit with a hard hurricane (NJ here) instead of there being lines in the gas station, the lines will be for the fast chargers.
The upside is we can spread chargers about much more liberally than petrol stations. I already saw some streets in the UK that have a charging plug or two in every lamp post. I dont think they were fast chargers, but still.
So hopefully, in a decade or few people may be able to just drive to the next town or another part of the city, park wherever and get the power they need.
Fast chargers are convenience but in an emergency, having a lot of slower outlets spread out all over the place might help a lot of people out.
Pay no attention to the large diesel generator trailer parked behind the charging station.
Wow, I'm surprised by how much loss the Kill-A-Watt showed. I don't have much experience with consumer type inverters (I assume the car's charging system produces AC in the same way), but I thought the efficiency would be much better. Is that much inefficiency typical of all sine wave inverters?
On a side note: Does anyone else find it amusing that we're talking car performance, in terms of "How many appliances can this baby run?", instead of "How fast can this baby run?". 😆
It's been fascinating to watch the technology that's driving EV development evolve and I'm excited to see where it takes us. Thanks for another great video, Alec!
Please make sure you use a 12AWG extension cord if you pull anywhere near 15A, the heat and voltage drop will be high. That lighted cord seems quite thin, like a 16 or 18AWG. 👍🤠
Battery backups are best for network equipment anyway. It ensures consistently during brownouts and short power outages which really are most power outages. I also found that it reduces noise on the line in some cases in buildings with bad wiring
Yes, but it's still highly amusing that a recloser doing its thing can throw the device into a factory default mode. Dumb design. Or does Com Ed have a vendetta against Starlink?
@@stevegeist3798 totally agree. Reset button/switches should be how that works. Just giving my two cents as a network engineer. UPSes saved my ass soooo many times
Seeing the Tillreda induction hob - have you considered opening it up and checking what diameter the coil inside is?
For that matter, induction hobs, the diameter of coils inside, and how this affects heat distribution in pots and pans could be a good video topic.
A chest freezer when full can be off for a day or two with no danger of the food thawing.
Also, I'd be interested in how the garage mini-split would heat the house if the door was left open. Perhaps not enough for furnace comfort levels but to keep pipes from freezing that are above ground.
No need to nuke the butter-drain the veg, add the butter to the pan and let it melt that way, on low if needed. Sounds more efficient to me.
As always, appreciate your attention to detail and dedication.
Nice! I have the same Lectron V2L adapter, but have yet to use it to power anything. You've given me some good tips!
vehicle load to function is one of the reasons i have held off getting a battery backup system. its likely my next vehicle will be an EV and this being an option is something i'd be including in my lists
This is a super neat feature that I didn't know existed. To be fair, I didn't really look that hard, but still, it's very neat. I could see this being used (in conjunction with a manual transfer switch) to provide car-based emergency power for specific circuits (take a look at reliance controls wide lines of manual transfer switches). You could use one of their 30A switches (since you're limited to a single 110v leg) in order to switch over specific circuits in your house from utility feed to the car just by flipping a switch.
After having gone through the Texas Snowpocalypse and never wanting to do that again, I'm looking at multiple power generating redundancies because we didn't have power for a week in an all electric apartment. Now we have a house with a NG generator, water heater, and furnace but I'm always looking to add to our existing configuration just in case.
In the Texas outage, the gas distribution network froze, too, if I'm not mistaken?
@@Validole A lot of it did, but what remained functional was prioritized for residential over industrial service. Speaking with several of our neighbors on that, no one lost NG service during the freeze. Even then, the possibility of losing NG service warrants looking at other power generation/storage options (like solar, EV V2L, etc) especially since the Texas grid is so delicate.
I still can't get over how massive the Texas power outage was and how simple it would have been to avoid.
Shareholders gotta get paid though I guess.
@@adampope5107 Yeah I feel like Texans should spend less effort trying to improve their setup for outages, and more effort lobbying their government/administration to actually fix their grid.
Thanks to this video I finally came around to looking up whether our MG ZS has any v2l capabilities and to my surprise it does, neat!
I’m purely addicted to all of your content. To the point I rewatch stuff when I’m caught up. Cant wait to see the video you do on the ionic! Been watching for years. So glad you’re still at it.
EVs change so much more than just emissions. Awesome test.
That's a great feature! I recently rented a Tesla 3, cause it was the same rate as a regular car, so was kinda fun to try out as I've never touched an EV before. The most baffling part though was the sentry mode horfed up about as much power as this experiment here, leaving it parked a full day was like 9% of the charge. I get you wouldn't run that at your own home overnight if you had a garage, but yeesh. No wonder Avis had to sift though several dead Teslas in the back to find one to give me
Good to know, don't buy rental car fleet used Teslas as they are left at 0% SOC.
If you own (rather than rent) you would generally have Sentry mode off when at home. I charged my 2020 Model S to 90% 3 days ago and I haven't driven it since. It is still at 90%.
@@JeffEdmondson if you want a car that has parts that are in good condition in general, uh, don't buy a tesla, new or used
I specifically park next to Teslas whenever I can, hoping they may have sentry mode enabled in case something happens
Never believe the stated efficiency rating of an inverter. They are always the maximum efficiency under ideal conditions rarely seen in the real world.
I really like the way the Hyundai Ioniq's look. Like they really brought style. And apparently functionality!
Another factor contributing to the extra loss you experienced is the car systems you are "waking up" each time you open the car door. I once had to perform a "parasitic drain test" to determine why my 2011 Ford Flex's battery was dying so quickly. Following the instructions, I learned I had to be extremely careful not to open or close any door during the test because doing so woke up the car for anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. Waking the car and triggering extra load would prevent accurate results in my drain test. To prevent that, I used a screwdriver to flip the latching mechanism on the outer edge of the door to the closed position with the door open. (Of course, the door would not close because the latching mechanism would not mesh with the corresponding part on the door frame that holds the door shut in normal operation, so I needed to manually flip it back when I was done.) With the latch in the closed position, I then waited 60 minutes for the car's systems to go to sleep before beginning my parasitic drain test. You would possibly get a more efficient result with your vehicle-to-load test if you either didn't wake the car by opening and closing the door, or by flipping the latch to the closed position 1 hour before beginning your test and leaving the door open. I loved your video, and learn a lot watching all of your stuff!
I realize that your EV is nothing like my old 2011 model, and you've got an app that you can use to control the car... Just a thought!
IIRC, it was on your channel i saw that cool old EV. The motor controller handled running the motor, regen braking, charging AND inverter functions. That was super nifty because there's a lot of overlap in those functions and it should in theory be cheaper to wrap all those functions into a single unit rather than run seperate inverter\charger\motor controller.
We recently had a power outage here in southwestern PA that lasted about 13 hours for me due to a wind storm (it was a lot longer for some other people). It was around freezing outside and the temperature in my house dropped to about 61 overnight. I've been considering a EV for my next car and this is an interesting option if I could adapt my furnace and fridge/freezer to quickly plug in when the car is in the garage in case of emergencies.
We went to a UPS for our modems years ago because we work from home, and even just a few minutes of power is helpful to retain Internet while you shut things down and make other arrangements if needed.
Awesome experiment. Definitely a good reason to keep the batteries topped up in the winter.
I have a SAIC MG5 - all the MGs have V2L 😊. It gives up to 2.5kW from the CCS port using a special cable. Handy to power the household in an outage, or to vacuum the car outside without an extension cable! It has a 61kWHr battery so you can do a lot of cleaning!
The MG4 can do 7kW (not official). Of course use a custom cable for this with thick wires. Maybe the MG5 can do it too?
I also have an MG5 57kWh usable. I’m current-ly using it for doing tumble drying. Just about to install a a Changeover switch to power a few circuits. I did test the 2.5kW limit and boiled a 2.8KW kettle whilst the 1.8KW tumble was running all good.
@A B depending on the resistor, a 2000ohm will limit to 2200w, 470ohm 7kw from memory
@andrew, I made my V2L lead using a 470ohm resistor as from what I found that’s what is needed for the car to see the lead as a discharge lead.
@@craggy4749 i made mine for my ZS with a 2k resistor which is the same as the official MG V2L adaptor, which we haven't got in NZ
I did think about using a 470 but didnt eant to risk cooking the multiboard ive used with mine
for your finalized emergency power backup setup, might want a power strip that has individual on/off switches for each outlet. as well as the kill-a-watt meter plugged in next to the power strip instead of in the garage
Advantage: you'll hear the kill-a-watt beep for a little while before the source cuts off during over current situations.
I think it's really fun to see the lengths you are going to, to take advantage of your power companies pricing system
I like how the time seems to run backwarts in the reflection of the kitchen-clock in the vintage toaster. 😁
As far as plugging in a lamp, I am a big fan of either USB battery night lights or camping lanterns. For a power outage, that would be one less cord to trip over, and they are generally convenient for night lights or desk lamps.
You can get a led lantern that runs in regular old alkaline batteries for about four dollars at Harbor Freight. We have two that we use when the power goes out. We also have some decorative led "candles" that run on batteries. Those became the go to during our frozen Tennessee Valley Authority Christmas.
The led lantern was blinding unless we put some fabric over it.
It would be interesting to use a current clamp + properly rated voltmeter to measure power draw from the battery before the inverter and stuff. Maybe the car even reports that stuff through the diagnostic port so you wouldn't need to worry about dealing with the HV battery directly.
Yup, CanIoniq, EV Watchdog, and other similar apps will show you battery voltage and current read out from OBD.
When you switched the Kill A Watt to Amps mode, I said to myself, "I know what this means. I saw Apollo 13 and I also vape." Anyway, great video as always. Thank you for these extra features and experiments. I love all your videos and you explain things in a fun way.
I love that half an hour in you recommend for us to stop watching, clearly you have a higher threshold of entertainment than I do....
A combination microwave that can also act as a convection oven is really cool. Saves a lot of space!
Are those things any good? Combo kitchen appliances rarely seemed to be worth it in the past, but maybe things have changed
@@mrb692 In my limited experience with them, they can't reach higher temperatures that a standard oven can reach. Might as well just use it as a microwave.
@@davidmcgill1000 my convection toaster oven has the same temperature range as my oven, but if the combo microwave actually works equally well as a nuke and a convection toaster oven, then I can clear off some counter space.
It’s just that usually you don’t get one gadget that does 2 things just as well as two standalone gadgets, but rather one gadget that does 2 things half as well.
@@mrb692 A toaster oven is different. They are just small ovens by themselves whether there is a fan or not. A combination microwave has two entirely different appliances built into it.
@@davidmcgill1000 Depends. For example my mom has one and you cannot bake cakes in it and even thicker pizza has a problem because the moisture gets trapped in the inside and the whole thing basically stays raw in the middle. I got another one (SHARP) and it works for frozen pizza well (never tried anything else and the pizza my mom made were thicker I think).
But for for buns for example, it works very well.
I think this really is the game changer for Evs if your in an area with outages it's perfect. I have a generator only it'll only do 1kw. In the UK we don't have the massive usage you guys do we don't have acs for example and alot of people don't have large American style fridges. My house consumes between 7 and 10kwh. Day so I think could easily last a couple weeks on the car. So much uneccessary stuff plugged in that don't necessarily need .
That's fine and all but be realistic. That couple of weeks is if you don't cook, have led bulbs and barely have anything else plugged in. Many of those large fridges are actually more efficient than old school small fridges. I have been to many areas of the UK and have personally seen those large fridges and newer home appliances, some even opting for an induction top stove.
@@NeptuneSega most people in UK have a standard fridge. Yes people do have American fridges but in general normal fridges and not usually the size of the one in the video. My house is completely led every single light so that's not out of the question at all. As I stated I use 7-10kwh a day my oven is fully electric. Only thing we use gas is for hot water and heat. My fridges use less than 2 kWh a day all together I have two fridge freezers Nd a stand alone freezer.
@@NeptuneSega did you not read his comment? He already started his usage
The F150 Lightning can offboard 9 kW, at once, with the extended range option and 7 kW with the standard range option. Of course, the typical home uses around 2 to 4 kW at any time on average. With the "Intelligent Backup Power" system (grid safety disconnect and transfer switch, sold separately by other companies) you can use the Charge Station Pro and offboard power through the truck's charge port, as you were mentioning. But, with 8 standard outlets in the standard range option, and 11 outlets (1 is a 240v 30A outlet) in the extended range option, you can offboard 7 and 9 kW, respectively, through the outlets also. Moreover, the outlets in the bed are on their own circuit, and the outlets in the cab and frunk are on another circuit. Needless to say, there's no worry about power supply for all of one's needs with that great truck. Of course, there are many other reasons I love my F150 Lightning.
This is such a neat and useful feature, I wish my Volt had the feature OEM but you can hack it together with a 1500w inverter and by leaving the car on in hold mode, or alternatively you can switch it to mountain mode and then it'll pretty aggressively hold the same state of charge by starting the engine.
I agree, definitely should be a standard feature! It could literally be life-saving for some.
Oh, on the topic of the fridge… always a good idea not to open it until you have power again, since it stays cool for a while, but opening the door just lets all the warm in.
If you actually had a power outage, and were worried about it being a week or longer, you could definitely extend your power way further. Only plug in ABSOLUTE necessities, like the fridge; avoid cooking things where you can [or cook the quickest things], read physical books or an eReader by sunlight or a small LED torch… You were living a luxurious life with your test. [Nothing wrong with that, just saying, you were testing a “as close to regular life” scenario as you could, vs. emergency survival stretch as far as you can]
It would be really nice if the car was able to fully back feed into a NEMA14-50 outlet and power the whole house like a generator would rather than just giving a single phase 15A outlet. Your setup is great for short power outages in houses that don't have things to worry about like a well pump, or sump pumps to keep a basement dry. Unfortunately most power outages happen in inclement weather, so if you're in the middle of a heavy rain and the power goes out, any sump pumps you have will need to be powered if you don't want to flood.
I'm also in the Chicago area and my power has been out for more than 24 hours every year for the past 3 years running now. The most recent one happened when we got that freezing rain, without a generator the basement would have flooded for sure.
I'm super hopeful for the future of cars-as-emergency-backup technology, I definitely feel like there's plenty of room to improve and great strides have been made already!
The special bi-directional EVSE that's made for the Ford F-150 lightning can back feed the whole house, a lot of people I've talked to say that's the killer app for owning that truck, but it requires some pretty specialized wiring in order to make it function, not just a simple 240 volt circuit to the garage.
I did in fact use my bolt EV to keep my sump pump going once a few years ago, I just hooked a 750 watt inverter to the 12 volt battery under the hood. With the car in neutral and the parking brake set, it would stay active continuously and provide power for that, I ran an extension cord from my garage to my basement. Not the most efficient set up in the world, but it worked.
That's where the ford's 14-30 plug is nice. It's relatively easy if you're comfortable with electricity to install a generator power inlet box and a circuit breaker interlock. My friend has a powerboost f150 with the 7.2kW pro power, and want's to put one in this summer.
I have the same toaster. It belonged to my parents and it has worked my entire 41 years and i believe was bought as a housewarming gift in the 1970s.
Your Ryobi tools would also come in handy too in a real blackout because they've got batteries, and and with a torch (aka flashlight) or work lamp, you can eliminate the extra lamp in the bathroom (safer too since no trip hazard in the dark).
Periodically recharge the ryobi batteries from the powerboard (aka strip) when required.
If you plan to do some more power usage tests, there are lots of plugs which support computer readout, so you can easier monitor these values. Combined then with an ODB readout of the car you could combine and graph these values ;-)
I think you'd need the car to be in a more "awake" state than used in this video for the ODB2 to function. That's provided you know which PIDs to monitor for the data as well - is that well known? I don't have an EV myself and when I had a Prius hybrid, the best I could figure out was overall battery health and an charge amount, both integers in the range of 0-100.
@@draeath why, would not necessarily think so. Anyhow, not expensive and easy to test and see if it works or not. There should be lots of tools which come with the proper mappings, so why should it be different for his car type.
An other way could be some api or connected services from the car vender, so you might get that data from the cloud.
Cars are more like a computer than a car being turned off. I had seen there are some physical OBD2 ports with Ethernet, …
@@MartinEKoch For OBD to be up, you'd need to at least have a CAN bus operating, wouldn't you? That would require at least one computer module to be awake enough to do it - it's not the sort of protocol that's low-energy friendly (ie you can't just poll every few seconds).
I think it would be interesting to take another 24-hour period and run a small fixed-wattage load (say a few watt LED light) and check the kill-a-watt usage vs. the battery % drop. I would guess most of the loss is just a fixed loss in the inverter per hour. Kind of a similar story with most UPSes.
I also live in the Chicago area in a suburb with underground utilities so power outages are fairly infrequent here since our power lines rarely get broken. Our longest outage was in the winter though. It was more than 12 hours but less than 24 hours. Our house got fairly chilly but not terrible.
I love this function. It is quite versatile, and as you say, I think every electric car should have this. It can be both used in emergencies, on offgrid camping as well as in extreme conditions like this past autumn and winter was in Europe in terms of electricity prices. I could see you using it to skip the higher spot price hours of electricity if it turns really bad, for example.
I saw a guy who ran a circuit off to the side with blue painted outlets that only lead to a single inlet on the outside of the house, so that he would not need to hassle around with extensioncords through an open window or so, and risk tripping on cables. He'd just run a cable from his Ioniq 5, then plug whatever he needed to be powered into the blue outlets, like his mini split, fridge and so on.
The European model actually for once gets the better deal here though, since it is 16A on 230V. This enables us to run really useful appliances, like air source heat pumps such as the common mini split units to heat a home, since this can be easily plugged in with a regular schuko plug. I wonder if in the future we could get the full three phase experience out of a V2L adapter?