Energy
Sunday, October 2nd, 2022 4:47 pm EDT
The Ford F-150 Lightning has just barely arrived on the market, yet I’ve already heard a few stories of the Lightning powering people’s needs in the event of power outages. The first I heard about was up in Michigan, and we’ve got a whole podcast coming on that F-150 Lightning owner’s experience as well as his commentary on owning the Mustang Mach-E, driving with Ford BlueCruise, and more. Incidentally, he and I were on a webinar that was recorded during Hurricane Ian. I was upstairs in our townhouse as strong hurricane winds began to strike us, and I expected the power to go out at any moment. This F-150 Lightning owner, Aaron Smith, who is also a CleanTechnica reader and President of the Energy and Environmental Building Alliance (EEBA), joked that I could use a Lightning during Hurricane Ian — and believe me, I was thinking the same!! As it turned out, we didn’t lose electricity until about 90% of our county and 100% of our neighboring county had lost electricity within our utility district, and I made it all the way through the hour-and-a-half webinar! (We ended up losing electricity for just ~16 hours starting later in the evening.) As we’ll see below, a Ford F-150 Lightning did help one Florida man and his family ride out the storm. Before we get to that story, though, if you want to watch that aforementioned webinar, here it is:
[embedded content]
The F-150 Lightning owner who used his Lightning when his power was out is Westley Aaron Ferguson. He used his electric Ford pickup truck to power his and his family’s refrigerator, lights, fans, TV, electric stove burner, record player, and speakers — and probably more.
No power, no problem. @Ford Lightning saving the day! Currently powering our fridge, lights, fans, TV, electric stove burner, record player, and speakers ?⚡️ #FordLightning #HurricaneIan #Florida #Ford pic.twitter.com/fli6Bs6ug6
— Westley Aaron Ferguson (@westleyseagull) September 30, 2022
As the picture on the bottom right shows, the battery was still at 95% charge and the AC inside the truck was set to 69°F.
The pictures are almost out of an ad for Ford. At first, I wondered if he had used Ford market pictures. Though, it turns out he is a photographer and Associate Creative Director at Elegant Seagulls, with clients ranging from ESPN to Netflix to Airbnb.
Westley also brought us back in time a bit, or at least used technology some of us remember from the 2000s, 1990s, and perhaps even earlier to enjoy some entertainments during the storm without WiFi.
Blu-ray player! ?
— Westley Aaron Ferguson (@westleyseagull) October 1, 2022
Haha, vinyls are quite amazing when you have no internet or cell service!
— Westley Aaron Ferguson (@westleyseagull) September 30, 2022
Westley even had some time to call out some counterproductive and misinformed anti-EV fear-mongering during the hurricane.
Imagine having compassion for those whose homes and lives were destroyed from a category 4 storm. Instead, you tweet about what kind of cars Floridians drive when they are facing a disaster ?
— Westley Aaron Ferguson (@westleyseagull) October 1, 2022
Also see: “Tesla Model X In ‘Boat Mode’ Escapes Hurricane Ian Floodwaters.”
A Ford exec was happy to join in on the fun as well and offered a little pun in response to Westley’s tweet.
Lightning after the storm. ?⚡️?
— Mike Levine (@mrlevine) September 30, 2022
Hehe — clever.
One person asked how long Westley thought he’d be able to run his house on the Lightning, a question many were surely wondering. Naturally, not knowing how long they’d be without power (it could be hours or it could be days or weeks), the most logical thing was to only use the Lightning to power essentials. Also, Westley did not have the vehicle-to-home (V2H) setup Ford is offering in partnership with Sunrun. As you can see below, though, they used ~10% of the truck’s power in one day, so he assumed they could have used the truck like that for 8–9 days if the grid power had stayed out that long.
We currently only have essentials plugged in. We are not running the A/C. We used about 10% on day 1, so my guess is if I let it go to 10%, I can go about 8-9 days at this rate. It would be less if it was powering the whole home. I’m pretty impressed how much we can power though!
— Westley Aaron Ferguson (@westleyseagull) September 30, 2022
that’s a great question, we don’t have the setup for that currently since we are moving. Hopefully I never have to test that, but for now, our power just kicked back on and it was nice to have the truck for the 2 days we didn’t have power.
— Westley Aaron Ferguson (@westleyseagull) September 30, 2022
In the end, he just had to use the truck to power their electric stove, fridge, fans, lights, and entertainment for two days. The truck surely must have felt priceless in those days, though!
Looking at Westley’s Twitter timeline, just a couple of days before Hurricane Ian hit, he was having plenty of fun with the young F-150 Lightning in other ways. He got plenty of double-takes at the airport when loading up the giant Mega Frunk with luggage …
Just your everyday airport drop off ⚡️#ford #fordlightning #frunk #frunklife @Ford pic.twitter.com/ij8ncdY9Jo
— Westley Aaron Ferguson (@westleyseagull) September 26, 2022
… and he went back to the future against a DeLorean on his way to Universal Studios in Orlando.
Apparently we are racing to @UniversalORL. Delorean VS Ford Lightning. Who would win? ⚡️ #ford #fordlightning #delorean pic.twitter.com/4NoFtmI9FF
— Westley Aaron Ferguson (@westleyseagull) September 26, 2022
What a week! With his luck, and his photography skills, we’ll have to check in with Westley down the road to see what other kinds of adventures he gets into with his Lightning!
Appreciate CleanTechnica’s originality and cleantech news coverage? Consider becoming a CleanTechnica Member, Supporter, Technician, or Ambassador — or a patron on Patreon.
Don’t want to miss a cleantech story? Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Advertisement
This post has been syndicated from a third-party source. View the original article here.