The other Sea-Change that is coming for all EV's

[Mr. Flibble]

Something I realized watching all these videos regarding the Ford Lighting - we are about to see some really big changes because of this truck. A bunch that might not be immediately apparent at first glance.

First - the Sunrun Inverter for Intelligent Backup Power; you buy it from Sunrun, not Ford. This means that the capability of feeding back power via the DC pins does not require a Sunrun inverter. It just requires one for now because no one else is making them that we know about. Other companies will follow suit.

GM is going to copy this feature - my guess is exactly as we see it on the Lightning using the DC pins with the Silver-aval-ado.

Load sharing for EVs has been talked about for so long, but Ford really has done it. I expect every manufacturer to follow suit fairly soon over the next couple of years. This will also force Tesla to change - because their charging cable cannot as far as I know, back feed to an inverter. Plus, Tesla also sells Power Walls. This is going to eat into the market for Power Walls. This entire change, this one truck is going to hurt Tesla a lot.

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[PV2EV]

There are many battery capable Bi-directional inverters/systems. While most are geared toward stationary batteries, what is need is a standard for V2X that EV manufacturers embrace, then it will blossom.

I think the Leaf system was DC to the inverter.

 

[beatle]

It's a nice idea, but you can only load share when your truck is actually home and plugged in. Any time you're using your truck for transportation, you're still relying on other power sources. In a lot of cases I think this feature would be somewhat under utilized.

A lot of people do not have ToU rates, and even if you do, the investment to do load sharing may not be worth the squeeze to offset peak prices with your vehicle's battery.

I also wouldn't want to be surprised by a lower than expected SoC when I needed to head out.

 

[Rob G]

If only I could chain it together with my MME as well, that’s a lot of battery.

 

[Mr. Flibble]

It's a nice idea, but you can only load share when your truck is actually home and plugged in. Any time you're using your truck for transportation, you're still relying on other power sources. In a lot of cases I think this feature would be somewhat under utilized.

A lot of people do not have ToU rates, and even if you do, the investment to do load sharing may not be worth the squeeze to offset peak prices with your vehicle's battery.

I also wouldn't want to be surprised by a lower than expected SoC when I needed to head out.

Its true - though if you are not home, odds are you are not using much power anyways, so you probably don't need load sharing at that point. About 50% of all drivers have a commute every day that is about 3 miles one way. This leaves a lot of overhead for the F150 to take over. To load share through a peak period would probably take 20-30 miles of range off the battery or so. Not much at all in the grand scheme of things.

And, if it reaches a point where all EV's have this, then two car garages will always have some load balance option as long as someone is home with a car.

 

[FordLightningMan]

I think the major change will be when there are two vehicles in each house with Lightning's capabilities. If the Lightning driver of the family is at work and there is a power outage, the stay at home parent and kids may be freezing/burning up cause their generator isn't home. Once everyone who lives in the house is driving a mobile generator, then these situations where someone isn't home with something that can supply power go down considerably.

Another two EV with backup power capability use case is when you are away from home a few days. Visiting your folks out of town for the weekend, does that mean you can't take the Lightning if your other car can't provide backup power? If you do take the Lightning and you refrigerator or sump pump lose power when not at home, that's no good. What if you're single or are a family with one car?

So unless we are all getting two Lightnings... which maybe we should, I think we aren't quite to the point where an EV can be considered a trusted main source of backup power. 25 years from now when MY22 Lightnings aren't needed on the road anymore, maybe people will have them permanently parked in the back yard ready for backup!

 

[VTbuckeye]

Solar roof + 10 to 20kwh battery backup + lightning in the garage. It would be best if the backup battery could take a charge from the lightning.

 

[Mr. Flibble]

I think the major change will be when there are two vehicles in each house with Lightning's capabilities. If the Lightning driver of the family is at work and there is a power outage, the stay at home parent and kids may be freezing/burning up cause their generator isn't home. Once everyone who lives in the house is driving a mobile generator, then these situations where someone isn't home with something that can supply power go down considerably.

Another two EV with backup power capability use case is when you are away from home a few days. Visiting your folks out of town for the weekend, does that mean you can't take the Lightning if your other car can't provide backup power? If you do take the Lightning and you refrigerator or sump pump lose power when not at home, that's no good. What if you're single or are a family with one car?

So unless we are all getting two Lightnings... which maybe we should, I think we aren't quite to the point where an EV can be considered a trusted main source of backup power. 25 years from now when MY22 Lightnings aren't needed on the road anymore, maybe people will have them permanently parked in the back yard ready for backup!

It is a good point. By the same token, we have a generator - most of our neighbours don't. I know this because we have a good view of all the homes below us, and only 1 or 2 have the lights on during an outage. If they bought a Lightning, this would be a step up from nothing.

We have a generator - but generally only use it at night. We are fortunately in a climate where we (usually) won't freeze during the day. Dragging it out is a major pain in the ass. It is very loud. It is very expensive to run. Adding a propane generator would cost us an extra $11,000 - which we decided to spend on the Lightning.

So, having a Lightning when you have no other options is better than not having anything. A lot of people in Texas were really happy to have the F150 hybrid with Pro-power, because having it was a lot better than not having anything at all.

 

[beatle]

So, having a Lightning when you have no other options is better than not having anything. A lot of people in Texas were really happy to have the F150 hybrid with Pro-power, because having it was a lot better than not having anything at all.

Not saying load sharing isn't a good idea, but I think that's where we'll be for a while - in case of emergency only. There are people who are motivated to make load sharing things work to save a buck or two by offsetting their consumption, but with the home inverter being so expensive to purchase and install (and still being limited in its capacity to deliver power to 9.6kw), I think we're still a ways off from it being so common you rarely think about it.

 

[Mr. Flibble]

Not saying load sharing isn't a good idea, but I think that's where we'll be for a while - in case of emergency only. There are people who are motivated to make load sharing things work to save a buck or two by offsetting their consumption, but with the home inverter being so expensive to purchase and install (and still being limited in its capacity to deliver power to 9.6kw), I think we're still a ways off from it being so common you rarely think about it.

I agree. I think there will be 10-20% of people at first that option to have the whole house power. Though 9.6kw isn't bad. Our gas generator is only 8kw.

I think it will take time - but where it will have a positive impact over the longer term is all the naysayers claiming you can't have an EV because: "The grid cant handle it! You are destroying the grid!". This isn't TRON. The Grid will be fine. Especially if more and more people buy EVs, and then power companies will need to move to TOU rates that don't use them today. In any area with wild TOU rates, or rolling brownouts, it will quickly become a feature - especially if the rumours of V2G are true.

 

[bg226]

I've heard people say that having a Lightning hooked up with the Charger Pro is like having a Tesla Powerwall, but that isn't true at all. It's true that both will be fed power from the solar panels, but the Lightning will only provide power back to your house when the grid goes down and the power source is switched to the Lightning. A power wall will be the power source when the sun goes down and the panels aren't producing electricity, once the battery runs dry, it can pull from the grid.

 

[Mr. Flibble]

I've heard people say that having a Lightning hooked up with the Charger Pro is like having a Tesla Powerwall, but that isn't true at all. It's true that both will be fed power from the solar panels, but the Lightning will only provide power back to your house when the grid goes down and the power source is switched to the Lightning. A power wall will be the power source when the sun goes down and the panels aren't producing electricity, once the battery runs dry, it can pull from the grid.

That is true of the Sunrun inverter, but not of the truck itself. I think more options will crop up from other companies eventually.

 

[Mr. Flibble]

I think this is coming sooner than we thought....

 

[Artificial Intelligence]

I don't know if it will hurt tesla... it will definitely make EVs mainstream. In my view there's no direct competition for lightning at the moment... and it looks like its going to be a dominant players in EV pick up market for many years to come.

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