Welcome to the Hyperdrive daily briefing, decoding the revolution reshaping the auto world, from EVs to self-driving cars and beyond. You can the full article featured in today’s newsletter on the web here. The F-150 Lightning’s Key Capability |
Spend an afternoon driving the Ford F-150 Lightning around the vineyards and redwood-shaded back roads of California wine country and the pickup’s considerable power is apparent. What makes the electric version of America’s best-selling vehicle a potential game-changer, though, is not its acceleration (zero to 60 miles per hour in 4.3 seconds) or its range (up to 320 miles on a charge). It’s the ability to tap the Lightning’s battery pack to power your home or the electric grid during increasingly frequent climate-driven blackouts. The extended-range Lightning’s 131 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion pack boasts almost 10 times the capacity of a Tesla Powerwall, an $11,000 home backup battery that can’t be driven to the supermarket. The Lightning is “a mini powerplant for your home,” says Jason Glickman, executive vice president for engineering, planning and strategy at California utility PG&E. “At scale, when these vehicles are enabled to send energy back to the grid, flex alerts and notices of grid emergencies will be a thing completely of the past.” The version of the pickup aimed at commercial fleets, called the Lightning Pro, starts at $39,974 before state and federal rebates and tax credits. If the Lightning is plugged in when a blackout hits, the home automatically begins drawing electricity from the battery. When power is restored, the system disconnects and then resumes charging the vehicle. Ford says the Lightning can fully power an average home for roughly three days.
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