Yeah, I mean a $2k generator would do the same thing though…
Just bury your fucking power lines you bunch of third world twats.
When a hurricane took power out at a Florida veterinary clinic last year, the Lightning’s giant battery powered it back up. After an elderly man was stranded in California because his electric wheelchair’s battery ran out, a Lightning made it operational again. And during the devastating Kentucky floods in 2022, Ford deployed two Lightnings as mobile generators to support cleanup efforts.
I mean, hurray for the band-aid, but the root of the power outages is crappy infrastructure.
Even the old man in California is a victim of the fact that there aren’t enough public charging points.
Honestly I think a hurricane is a pretty good reason for a power outage.
Natural disasters like tornados and wild fires are a whole different course of planning from infrastructure design. Your blanket complaint doesn’t address the actual sources of the outages, only complaining about how people get through the after effects.
Right? Out in the country we all need back up Generac units, which are 100% reliable because they run off natural gas, which is all buried infrastructure.
NIMBYS won’t allow it.
NIMBYs usually don’t have issues with buried infrastructure… It’s the above ground stuff they can see that’s usually a problem.
Buried infrastructure is just more expensive to install. And that cost is paid by someone. In new builds it’s covered by new sales. But when replacing old infrastructure that usually means everyone’s prices go up, or taxes if paid by the government. And no one wants to approve that.
Also, burying doesn’t work in all geography, despite assumptions from some know it all folks.
I grew up in a filled in wetland with buried lines. Between occasionally having outages due to water affecting the grid, and lines that like to resurface as soils sink and flow, it wasn’t ideal and probably explains some Florida grid choices.
Then I lived in the mountains and in dense forest. Good luck luck burying lines in rugged mountains full of granite and ravine.
And heavy forest is also an issue. You gonna go around all the trees? Cut them down?
Grid reliability and line safety is a serious issue. We lose people and towns (see - Paradise fire) when it isn’t right. But the obvious solution in your corner of the world doesn’t work everywhere. Redundant connections, infrastructure maintenance, local supply all matter to many.
And yes, good reliable backup options, including the massive investment in the driveway, can and do certainly help. As an EV driver who has lived through many days of blackout, I can say that at first, the EV is super helpful. Warm up, charge the phone battery, even run an extension cord in for smaller loads. But this won’t last long. After a day or two, charging the EV is its own problem.
I also have a (small affordable) backup generator! And I know how to use it for critical loads (fridge, wifi / comms, light, chargers). When I was in more vulnerable places, I had a backup backup generator which allowed small engine work on the primary during blackouts, and with both firing meant I could trickle charge the car during day and use the battery for silent backup overnight.
