Electric Cars Could Provide Power During Storm Eunice

As storm Eunice marches through the country, the strong winds are wreaking havoc on our wheelie bins, our garden fences and in some severe cases, our power.

With adverse weather being the hot topic at the moment, the story of storm Eunice unexpectedly provides us with yet another reason to buy an electric vehicle! Here at Motor-Vision, we can’t say we don’t still love the soul of a hot, gurgling petrol powerhouse but EVs are also proving to be more and more interesting each year.

For example, the new Kia EV6 not only features a very interesting and unique design, it also packs a fascinating feature that is very applicable to this very moment. The EV6 obviously takes in electricity from the grid but it’s possible for this EV to send power back out, essentially making the car one big rolling portable battery.

Say if storm Eunice knocked down your house’s powerline and all of a sudden you are left without a working freezer, TV, boiler and so on, it is possible to use the car’s power to keep essential household items running! Of course, it’s not as simple as that as you will need to fiddle with certain settings and need the correct connections but the point is the EV6 comes with this ability built-in!

Other electric vehicles have similar “vehicle to grid” or “vehicle to load” functions, such as the (also new) Hyundai Ioniq 5.

Things get even more impressive, though. Not only can certain EVs power appliances, they could, in theory, power a home for ‘several days’ according to the experts at Electrifying.com. Given that the car is fully charged, it would have enough ‘leccy to power an average UK home for several days, meaning that you wouldn’t have to eat everything in the freezer before it turns bad!

Although storm Eunice isn’t exactly a threat to most of us, in 2010 when Fukushima was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami, this concept of electric cars providing power proved very useful. When the natural disaster occured, 5 million Japanese homes were without power and Nissan did their part by mobilising early Leaf models which then provided aid to those without power.

This bi-directional use of power in electric cars is not in most models today but it is said to become more popular over the coming years and could be a common feature in EVs before we know it.

Let us know if you wish your car could do this, in the comments!

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