[ChasingCoral]

Ford Lightning owner powers home essentials for 2 days and still had battery left in the tank

Thousands of Canadian residents awoke Christmas ay with no electricity after a massive winter storm swept across the area. One...

electrek.co

Ford Lightning owner powers home essentials for 2 days and still had battery left in the tank
Peter Johnson| Dec 28 2022 - 11:42 am PT
70 Comments

Thousands of Canadian residents awoke Christmas ay with no electricity after a massive winter storm swept across the area. One southern Ontario resident was able to keep the lights on for almost two days after plugging in his Ford F-150 Lightning, and still had plenty of battery left after the power came back on.

Ford Lightning powers home after a severe winter storm
When Ford released the F-150 Lightning electric pickup, the company called it “the smartest, most innovative F-150 that Ford has ever built,” referring to it as the truck of the future.
However, as Kumar Galhotra, president of Ford Blue, explains:

We’re not here to make an electric truck for the few – Ford is committed to building one that solves real problems for real people.

And that’s exactly what Ford did. Ford was the first in the US to offer bidirectional chargingcapabilities on an electric truck with Intelligent Backup Power, which “provides full-home power for up to three days or as long as ten days,” depending on energy usage.
The Ford Lightning also includes Pro Power Onboard, providing up to 9.6 kW of power spread across 11 outlets, including a 240V outlet in the bed.
After a severe winter storm hit Ontario, leaving thousands without power, Hydro One, an electricity distribution company serving the area, said in a statement:

As the winter storm continues to affect the province, we urge our customers to prepare for possible outages. Our skilled team is working tirelessly to make repairs and restore power in areas that have been affected.

One Ford Lightning owner used his electric pickup’s powerful battery to power their home essentials for 44 hours. RapsFanLJ posted a picture of his EV pickup on Reddit, saying, “this baby saved us.”

Although it wasn’t wired to the home’s panel, the owner ran two extension cords with a splitter to power the refrigerators, freezers, Wi-Fi, select lights, and TV for nearly two full days. And the best part, when the power was restored, the Lightning still had 65% of its battery left.

Ford F-150 Lightning Source: RapsFanLJ Reddit

Electrek’s Take
Ford’s electric truck is not only fun to drive (instant torque makes it the fastest-accelerating F-150 yet), but it does also help solve “real problems for real people.”

It is foolish to have such a huge resource (EV battery), but not be able to use it as needed. That covers V2L, and V2H. V2G is also a no-brainer, and also pays the battery owner. the future feels pretty obvious here, but there is a large amount of pushback, just as there was on renewables, then EVs, then heat pumps. I've gotten the first 3 right despite the loud yammering that I was wrong/and the endless excuses about how it couldn't/wouldn't work. Good odds I am correct here, as well, but time will tell. Our family will simply not buy an EV that lacks V2G. Hilariously, that means a LEAF is ok, but a Tesla is right out!

Power outages have risen by around 78% in the past ten years, compared to the previous 10, as extreme weather events like the winter storm in Ontario are becoming more frequent.

The Ford F-150 Lightning has already helped people power up after hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and now a winter storm. The electric truck is already proving to be the “truck of the future” Ford envisioned, and customers just began receiving them earlier this year. With over-the-air updates, the Ford Lightning will only continue improving from here with added features and capabilities.

 

[terik2005]

Wow

 

[greatbreweh]

I tried power my camping trailer and the power would turn off after 15 min no matter what i did to stop it so i have found the rear plugs in the bed to be pretty much useless for me and have never used them since. If anyone knows how he kept this on for 2 days would love to know. Yes I had key in the truck and turned on still turned off bed power.
Pulled out old reliable Yamaha generator and had power al long as i needed! 😆 not as long as Ford thunked i needed 15 min😣

 

[ChasingCoral]

I tried power my camping trailer and the power would turn off after 15 min no matter what i did to stop it so i have found the rear plugs in the bed to be pretty much useless for me and have never used them since. If anyone knows how he kept this on for 2 days would love to know. Yes I had key in the truck and turned on still turned off bed power.
Pulled out old reliable Yamaha generator and had power al long as i needed! 😆 not as long as Ford thunked i needed 15 min😣

How was the auto-shutoff set on the Pro Power Onboard screen? What was y your minimum charge set to and what was your %SOC at the time you tried it?

Did you follow the instructions in the manual?

 

[KElkhorn]

After one of the updates, can't remember which one, the auto-power-off setting now defaults to 30 minutes, and you have to manually go in and set it to stay on each time you want to use it. Could this be your issue?

 

[greatbreweh]

How was the auto-shutoff set on the Pro Power Onboard screen? What was y your minimum charge set to and what was your %SOC at the time you tried it?

Did you follow the instructions in the manual?

It was last sept so I do not recall exactly how it was configured but any obvious setting on the screen to keep it on would have been activated, the min charge was well under my 90 percent full battery I do know that. not sure what SOC is. I looked at anything I could adjust on the pro-power screen but seem to be good to go just the truck would turn off by itself at a preset interval like it does when you remote start. I had read on here others having same issue, its a real shame as a contractor would love to be able to charge tool batteries in the back but 15 min is no where near enough to charge my batteries so these plugs seem to have little use. No i did not read the manual which that is my bad, I just gave up and plug my tools into a household plug that stays on or fire up the generator when camping. I seem to recall lot's complaining these plugs do not stay on is another reason i did not investigate further. I assume this guy has a device from ford that powers the house and keeps the truck on.

 

[greatbreweh]

After one of the updates, can't remember which one, the auto-power-off setting now defaults to 30 minutes, and you have to manually go in and set it to stay on each time you want to use it. Could this be your issue?

may have to go back and look at that but that seems to be what was happening, by the sounds of your replies you can keep your plugs running for hours?

 

[KElkhorn]

may have to go back and look at that but that seems to be what was happening, by the sounds of your replies you can keep your plugs running for hours?

Yes, have run tailgates for 8+ hours with satellite dish, etc. The first time I did this, ran fine no problem. 2nd time, turned off after 30 minutes, update had happened in between. Then I figured out I needed to set this each time, and has been fine since as long as I remember to turn off the auto-power-off.

 

[ChasingCoral]

It was last sept so I do not recall exactly how it was configured but any obvious setting on the screen to keep it on would have been activated, the min charge was well under my 90 percent full battery I do know that. not sure what SOC is. I looked at anything I could adjust on the pro-power screen but seem to be good to go just the truck would turn off by itself at a preset interval like it does when you remote start. I had read on here others having same issue, its a real shame as a contractor would love to be able to charge tool batteries in the back but 15 min is no where near enough to charge my batteries so these plugs seem to have little use. No i did not read the manual which that is my bad, I just gave up and plug my tools into a household plug that stays on or fire up the generator when camping. I seem to recall lot's complaining these plugs do not stay on is another reason i did not investigate further. I assume this guy has a device from ford that powers the house and keeps the truck on.

I’ve only tried it once but mine ran for a couple of hours after I told it to have no shutoff time.
%SOC = percent state of charge, amount of juice in your battery

 

[fmaccrea]

I've used my Lightning as backup power for 2 grid outages in the last month.
First one was documented here: Pro Power saved the day
PPO shutoff time must have been set to 'no shutoff', as I had no issue powering home basics for ~3 hours the first time, and ~2 hours the second time.

I had considered investing in the full Sun Run Home Integration system, but until such time that I might add solar to my home energy system and want to be able to charge the truck and use it for backup power simultaneously, the manual setup using the 220v/30a plug in the bed works just fine.

By the time the next grid outage occurs I hope to be set up to log the Pro Power usage in real time, from the ODB2 port using Torque or Forscan.

 

[greatbreweh]

Ok I did nothing today. thunked I will try it again and today and presto it worked, I suspect last Oct, the last time I tried this camping I have had an up date likely since then that fixed the issue

 

[patrickstoneking]

I tried power my camping trailer and the power would turn off after 15 min no matter what i did to stop it so i have found the rear plugs in the bed to be pretty much useless for me and have never used them since. If anyone knows how he kept this on for 2 days would love to know. Yes I had key in the truck and turned on still turned off bed power.
Pulled out old reliable Yamaha generator and had power al long as i needed! 😆 not as long as Ford thunked i needed 15 min😣

From the sync screen click on vehicle under settings, at the top of that screen turn off auto vehicle shutdown. You'll get a message telling you pro power will run until it reached the setting you chose in pro power screen. This will turn back on the next time you start your vehicle.