Over the weekend, Baker ran extension cords from the back of his Ford F-150 Lightning, using the truck's battery to keep his refrigerator and freezer running. It worked so well that Baker became an energy Good Samaritan. 'I ran another extension cord to my neighbor so they could run two refrigerators they have,' he told me.
An EV, at its most fundamental level, is just a big battery on wheels that can be used to power anything, not just the car itself. Some EVs pack enough juice to power a whole home for several days, or a few appliances for even longer.
This feature, known as bidirectional charging, has been largely invisible during America's ramp-up to electric driving. Many of the most popular EVs in the United States, such as Tesla's Model Y and Model 3, don't have it.
Bidirectional charging is hardly perfect: Connecting your car to your home requires thousands of dollars of expensive add-ons, but it has the potential to change the way we think about energy use and backup power sources.
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