Another way to view this is that driving a cybertruck every day is quite wasteful (no different than driving a full size gas pickup every day). One recharge cycle in a cybertruck uses enough energy to power a typical home for 8 days, 130kWh. If you aren’t doing truck things with it, it’s better to drive a more efficient EV or hybrid car. It uses almost twice as much Wh per mile compared to a model Y.

I think this is why these EV trucks don’t do well (ford also cancelled the F150 lightning). For truck things, they aren’t particularly capable (you’d get less than 100 miles towing). For daily driving duty, a car or small suv is much more efficient. You can power your home during a storm from most EVs these days, you’d just have to top it up more often

This is now a feature of most new Tesla vehicles:

https://www.tesla.com/powershare/#vehicles

> Powershare allows you to draw power directly from your compatible Tesla vehicle to power your devices, your home or the grid.

> Powershare is currently available for all Cybertruck vehicles, and all new Model 3 and Model Y2 vehicles ordered on October 1, 2026 or later.

> To verify if your vehicle has Powershare, navigate to ‘Software’ > ‘Additional Vehicle Info’ > ‘Powershare Support: Enabled’ on your vehicle touchscreen.

I ran the fridges and essentials with my Ioniq 5 the last time there was an extended power loss.

I don't think the residential power generator is needed anymore if you have an electric car.

I camped in a yurt in rural Maine last fall on a motorbiking trip. Needed to keep my phone charged for nav; woke up to find it hadn't charged all the way.

Went looking for the campground host and bumped into another camper, who was pissed the power went out. "Don't worry though - if you need to charge something, you can put it in my truck."

Ended up on a phone charging expedition that ended up with me hanging out in a local library for the first time since I was a child.

Came back and met the host: "Sorry about the power last night - some dumbass tried to charge his truck and tripped the breaker to the whole campground."

There are cheaper, more reliable, and easily repaired generators though.

If that’s the only thing you care about you can DIY (or buy dedicated battery backup systems) with 10x more capacity for the same price. With heavier but cheaper Na-ion batteries in the horizon near future backup systems will be even better

My F150 Lightning has an even bigger battery pack in it... and a simple 240V outlet.

> They may be ugly, but the emergency prepper in me always wanted one after hearing that story

If all you're after is the V2L feature, you can get for much cheaper: for 16% of the price of a Cybertruck, you can get 86% of the battery capacity (about 8 powerwalls) by buying a used Fisker Ocean Extreme (107kWh vs. the cybertrucks 123)

Ford had EV trucks that could do that before Tesla did.

Many EVs can do the same thing.

It’s unclear to me how a vehicle battery can be 9-10x the size of a house battery, be used as a house battery, include an highway safe cabin, motors and wheels and only cost 4x what a single home battery costs. Oh, and at least Kia rates their battery warranty based on miles driven, so using it as a home battery does not impact any 10-year capacity guarantees.

AI tells me they are completely different though, so I must be missing something.

I think "recycling" cybertrucks in this manner, basically to reuse their batteries, may give them a more practical afterlife then when they were a truck.

I would like to see more vehicle-to-grid capability out of cars, EVs, Hybrids, and Gas Cars alike.

This is a feature on many new electric vehicles (such as the Kia EV 9). The obstacle is often the power company, which may require modifying your system to enable this.

What are the chances that the supercharger station even has power after a hurricane? You want something that is already on the property. I've had roads blocked by fallen trees for days after a windstorm event.

If you are concerned about riding through a 14 day+ event you need a generator. Even a fully off-grid solar / wind setup could be compromised in these kinds of storms. I've seen entire roofs cleaned off by a <100mph storm. Anything not bolted down to a concrete slab cannot be depended on.

Can you do this with other normal EVs? I assume they'd have lower capacity, but just getting some power for your fridge, wifi, and chargers might be worth.

Generally a propane generator is a wiser, more reliable backup option. Propane doesn't go bad, and in disaster scenarios often the sun isn't shining or your solar panels could be damaged. Solar + battery is a good system when the weather is good and everything is going well, but for a fallback system a propane generator can't be beat.

You can get a lot of backup power for less than 100k.