On a spin down the two-lane roadways of northeast Georgia’s Appalachian foothills, a display model of the Ford Lightning whizzes along. “Listen, I drove it home last night, it’s badass,” said Cody Cain, the general manager at Billy Cain Ford, the local dealership owned by his father, Billy, which sits one mile away from the battery plant. With Tesla potentially losing Powerwall business with such a move, this isn’t anything we’ve seen enabled from the EV trendsetter yet either.All told, once packed and charged together and inside a new Ford F-150 Lightning, these lithium-ion batteries can make that all-electric truck, weighing in at over three tons, lurch forward from 0 to 60 miles per hour in just about four seconds. And VW EVs will, in the near future, offer such functionality. The Lucid Air is probably the closest product being delivered today that can offer the Lightning’s level of bidirectional charging, with that company’s Connected Home Charging Station the basis for stopgap home-energy needs or even off-grid uses like a vacation home. The Kia EV6 has a similar function, but Kia currently has no plans in the U.S. versions, it’s unclear how useful the car itself will be for energy storage.
But with the power-out potential of the first model, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, limited to 1.9 kw (Vehicle to Load, or V2L) in U.S.
Hyundai has said that future electric vehicles, built on the E-GMP dedicated EV platform, will be bidirectional-compatible, and in November it previewed a coordinated Hyundai Home energy ecosystem that will bundle charging, solar, and energy storage.
There isn't much potential competition yet. Based on these features enabled in its first product with the new cells, it clearly has a lot of confidence in them. output later in the decade made possible by an additional BlueOvalSK Battery Park in Kentucky. The F-150 Lightning is the first of potentially many upcoming Ford products to come from a joint battery venture between Ford and battery supplier SK Innovation, called BlueOvalSK and due to produce 60 gigawatt-hours annually by the middle of the decade, with 140 GWh of U.S. The former is full-on power for the home.
The latter is essentially like a generator system, with 11 outlets directly powering tools and more.
With the extended-range battery, Ford notes that the Lightning has 131 kwh of energy storage and can deliver up to 9.6 kw of power-more impressive specs than many wall battery units.įord released an accompanying graphic comparing its Intelligent Backup Power system with Pro Power Onboard. It has emphasized that commercial customers will have access to the same hardware and feature set.
The setup starts with the 80-amp Ford Charge Station Pro, which enables a wide range of smart-charging functionality, but to make the F-150 a reliable component for home backup energy you’ll need the full Home Integration System, which includes a power inverter plus a dark-start battery and transfer switch-allowing energy to flow to the house independent of a grid connection.įord hasn’t revealed details about pricing, but it says that customers interested in combining the Charge Station Pro installation with solar power may be eligible for reduced installation pricing and a zero-down finance plan. Ford Intelligent Backup Power - F-150 Lightning