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Every time I think about EVs, I become filled with dread thinking about what will happen if an area loses power for an extended period of time. I used to live i

• eldaisfish 9mo ago
  More batteries. I cannot believe this is a serious question. A small battery pack can easily run most essential domestic services.
• edent 9mo ago
  That's why Vehicle to the Grid / Home is so exciting. Your multi-kWh car battery can power your home for several days. https://carnewschina.com/2024/12/05/byd-struck-deal-with-japanese-government-to-power-critical-infrastructure-with-evs/ https://carnewschina.com/2024/12/05/byd-struck-deal-with-jap...
• Aachen 9mo ago
  That sounds like the extreme version of "but I need a fuel car because I want to drive it to France once a year for holiday". Driving something around all year for a once-a-year event is silly, but this is just insane. In a good life, you don't need this fallback from grid power even once in your lifetime! At least, not beyond the inconvenience that is having to stay at home like 1 unplanned day per several decades. That's still three and three quarters of a nine of uptime even if you'd get the recent Iberian peninsula event every 10 years, and assumes you emptied the battery coincidentally the day before the outage. If you're not an EMT or power plant technician, you're doing more harm than good by being the person who can drive to work during a power outage and find that you're the only one there and nothing works anyway
  • 3eb7988a1663 9mo ago
    Considering how expensive cars are, I do find the trip-to-grandma reasoning useful. Most people want a single vehicle that can do everything. Dismissing that with, "Well just drive differently" or "You can do the hassle that is renting a car" is not a compelling sell. What if I want to do my vacation trips during the holidays where rentals are already booked? I think full EVs are great if the lifestyle allows it, but plug-in hybrids seem a better fit for most people without requiring undue compromise.
    • Aachen 9mo ago
      What trip to grandma can't you do anymore with an EV? > What if I want to do my vacation trips during the holidays where rentals are already booked? The same as you do when any other part is booked out: go elsewhere or do something else. I don't buy a backup train in case the one I want is booked out one of the next ten summers Consider also the lifestyle change that's "growing older more healthily" by not having a population sit in exhaust fumes for 2x the daily average commute length
      • Ekaros 9mo ago
        Why there focus on sitting in traffic. Instead of more visionary solutions like banning single family homes and razing them all to ground and replacing them with high rises next to offices supported by forced public transport? Surely that should be the true alternatives for use of ICE and not EVs.
  • rstuart4133 9mo ago
    > That sounds like the extreme version of "but I need a fuel car because I want to drive it to France once a year for holiday". Having just made the 1,000km trip to the French Alps and back again in a Tesla Y, that's not a valid excuse any more. Back at home in Australia driving 2,200km from Mackay to Melbourne in a EV also a common enough holiday trip. The 5,000km trip to Perth might be a stretch, but it's considered a major undertaking in a conventional car too. You are crossing some of the most remote places on the planet that has paved roads. The problem isn't charging. It's that you need to carry spares - like drinking water for emergencies, and spare tyres. It's the tyres that would stop me from doing it in a Tesla Y. The Y doesn't have a place for a spare tyre, which is a disease that seems to afflict many modern cars of all types. It doesn't even come with a jack. Worse it needs special tyres that are hard(ish) to find in a major city, let alone 1000km from anywhere. Unless grandma lives in a place without electricity, the one issue you won't have in Australia or Europe is charging. EV charging points are everywhere now. Most parking lots have them. I dunno what the situation is in the USA, but if EV charging points are a problem I'd suspect deliberate government interference because in Australia at least every one seems to have been built privately. Unlike Europe Australia does not have much in the way of EV subsidies, yet they are springing up like weeds. I suspect the reason is location, location, location. Similar to petrol stations, but unlike a petrol station the upfront investment is low, they aren't manned so no wage costs, in a shopping centre they attract customers and they seem to markup the cost by 80..150%. What's not to like? So get in early and get the best spots.
• beej71 9mo ago
  I worry about that, too, but with my gas car. :)
• pveierland 9mo ago
  You could also flip that and talk about the risks of when your gasoline supply get shut down due to some event. With an EV stack you can generate your power locally and add resilience that way.
• jerkstate 9mo ago
  my area lost power for about 3 days last week and I ran all of my house's critical systems from my EV. it was great - silent, unlike the old generator, and not counting the sunk cost of the car, extremely cheap. Cost maybe $5 in electricity to keep the furnace, refrigerator/freezer, and internet on for 3 days, contrasted with probably $50 in gasoline for a similar amount of time. If the outage had been longer, I could have made a half-hour trip to an area that had working EV fast chargers and come back with another 5-6 days of power for the house.
  • 3eb7988a1663 9mo ago
    How expensive is the setup to tie in your vehicle into a house grid? Or can it be something as crude as running extension cables to plug into a powerstrip attached to the car?
    • jerkstate 9mo ago
      I did it cheap - I just ran extension cables from my car (previously from a generator). I have a manual transfer switch at my furnace to safely switch between utility power and extension cable power, and just replugged appliances. I think everything drew on average about 800 watts, up to maybe 1500. I split it between 2 1.8 kW 110v outlets in the car.
      • robocat 9mo ago
        How did you split the power from the two outlets into your one house supply?
    • tzs 9mo ago
      If your vehicle has V2H (Vehicle to Home) the way it generally works in newer cars is that you have a bidirectional charger that can be used to connect the car battery to an external inverter, which is then tied into your house grid the same way a generator would be, e.g., via a transfer switch on the circuit you want to power. This isn't cheap--I think it was generally many thousands of dollars for the cars I looked at that had V2H when I was EV shopping--but it generally gives you something something in the 9-20 kW range of power. For most people that gets into the territory of "as long as you remember not to use the electric clothes dryer at the same time you are making a meal that uses the electric oven and all of its burners you can just continue as if power is not out". I seriously considered it. In the summer I use around 8-10 kWh per day, and in most of winter under 40 kWh per day. With a car with an 85 kWh battery, keeping it in the 20-80% range, and keeping it near 80% when outages are likely, That would give me several days of backup power during a summer outage, and over a day during a winter outage. In 18 years in my current house I think I've only had one outage that went over a day, and never had an outage so widespread that I would not have been able to find a public DC charging station within 10 miles to recharge the car if an outage actually did last long enough to take it down to 20%. But the cars with V2H were out of my price range, even before adding the cost of the equipment to use V2H. If your vehicle has V2L (which is what the one I bought has) it is considerably cheaper. The car gives you one or two outlets similar to ordinary household outlets. Mine gives a single outlet, which you get by plugging an adapter into the charge port. With these you generally don't try to tie it into your house grid. You just run an extension cord (or two if your V2L provides two outlets) to where you want power. Some people get some sort of socket installed on the outside of their house that a cable from the car's outlet can be connected to, with that socket connected to an indoor outlet. Me, I just leave sliding door open enough for an extension cord to go through, and then stuff the gap with some foam strips that I got at Home Depot. It is surprising how much a single 120V 15A circuit can do. What I need to get through a one day power outage comfortably (which as mentioned would be an unusually long outage here) is: (1) power for the fridge, (2) power for an electric space heater, (3) power for my computer area and cable gateway (if cable is not out), (4) maybe power for some cooking, and (5) water to flush the toilet. Any time the weather forecast even hints at something that could cause widespread outages I fill a bathtub with water for #5. For the rest I've been monitoring power used for those things with a bunch of energy monitoring smart outlets (Tapo P110M controlled by Home Assistant using Matter). For #1, my fridge during a normal cycles draws 90-100W. During a defrost cycles it draws 400W. I have wireless thermometers in the fridge and freezer compartments so I can easily coordinate with other uses such as cooking to make sure I cook at a time when the fridge is going to not need to run for a while (which I can ensure by unplugging it). For #2 my space heater is usually 1500W, but I've got another one that is supposed to be 1500W but due to age is only 1300W, and I've got year another one which is 1500W on high but has a medium setting that is 1000W. On all but the coldest days 1300W and probably 1000W would keep it warm enough as long as I'm warmly dressed. For #3 my entire computer setup (Mac Studio, 27" 5K monitor, 24" 1920x1200 monitor, speakers, external Thunderbolt drive bay with 4 SSDs), a network switch, and a Hue hub is about 130W with short spikes to around 170W. If I turn off the second monitor that drops about 25W from that. The cable gateway is 15W. For #4 I've got a microwave, a toaster oven, and a couple George Foreman grills. The microwave draws over 1900W for the first minute or so on high, but I can set it lower and it is an inverter microwave so on lower settings it actually reduces the amps drawn rather than just cycling between full and off. The toaster oven is 1000W and the biggest GF grill is 1200W. I should be able to run all of these, as long as I take some care to not run too many at once. Some observations: 1. If I'm not going to use the computer for a while, such as when sleeping, I can run the 1500W space heater, turning it off when the fridge needs to run. I could actually then turn it back on once the fridge has started and gotten past its inrush current (20A, which my V2L has no trouble with). It would then be 1600W total unless the fridge is doing a defrost cycle than it would be 1900W. That's fine because the 400W defrost phase only lasts about 10 minutes and the non-defrost cycle only a bit over an hour, and it is around 3 to 8 hours (depending on how often I open the fridge I assume) after a cycle ends that it needs to run again. That counts as an intermittent load and so should be OK with my extension cords (rated 15A intermittent, 12A continuous). 2. If I'm using the computer I can switch to the 1300W space heater. That plus the computer both in continuous used would be under the 12A continuous rating of my extension cord. When the fridge needs to run I'd have to switch to a lower setting on the space heater until the fridge is done. 3. When I need to cook I'd just need to time it so it happens when the fridge won't need to run, and turn off the space heater while cooking. Nothing I'd be cooking in the toaster over or the GF grill takes more than 20 minutes. The computer stuff could remain powered during this. 4. If I don't have a bathtub full of toilet flushing water, I might be able to run my well pump from V2L. It's 120V with a 1/2 HP motor which would be under 1000W, but the inrush current may be too high. The specs say maximum of 44A, but from what I've read many people have had success with motors with that kind of inrush current, and the way the V2L system works it is safe to try it--worst case is the V2L safety systems shut it down. I just haven't gotten around to trying it yet. Overall then it seems like that single 120V 15A from V2L will actually be enough to get me comfortably through most power outages. I had not expected that when I got the car.
• hypeatei 9mo ago
  The common advice among "preppers" and more anxious individuals is to never let your gas gauge go below half or 1/4 tank. I think people are much more anxious than they realize about running out of gas in a black swan event.
• danaris 9mo ago
  Rooftop solar is getting cheaper, easier, more efficient, and more reliable every year. If you live in an area that is poor enough that this is not an option, it loses power frequently due to weather, and no one in power cares enough to fix it, that genuinely sucks, and I feel for you. But, as sibling comments said, some other poor areas don't get gasoline shipments in a timely manner—being poor and neglected is just always going to suck in various ways, and the solution is not to avoid any technological advancements that remove the crutch that your particular poor and neglected area is using to get through it a little easier, but to find ways to reduce the poverty and neglect. And, frankly, solar power and electric vehicles are both great tools to help with that, especially when used together.
• eurleif 9mo ago
  When a hurricane impacted my area last year, I kept seeing Facebook posts for a week or two afterward from people asking where to find gas. Meanwhile, the power never went out, so my EV was able to charge without issue.
• rootusrootus 9mo ago
  We’ve already had some experiences with this in Florida after a hurricane. EVs do quite well, turns out, better in many cases than gas cars. The grid is a very high priority for fixing, more so even than gas supplies.
• quasse 9mo ago
  > Every time I think about EVs, I become filled with dread thinking about what will happen if an area loses power for an extended period of time A mid-size EV battery can easily store 60kWh of energy. That's enough to power a domestic refrigerator for ~12 days (assuming 200w average power usage, which is on the higher end). I lost power for about a day last year and was very happy to be able to keep my fridge and some emergency lighting powered from an EV battery.