Ford's $28,000 electric truck can power your house in a blackout

Ford says its upcoming Fathom electric pickup, priced at $28,000, can send household power to your home during an outage. The key change is that the equipment that makes this possible sits inside the truck, not on your garage wall. Ford hopes that brings down the cost of setup. The official reveal is still a few months away.

What changed

Car batteries store power in a form that home outlets cannot use. A device called an inverter converts it. On the discontinued F-150 Lightning, that was a large, expensive unit installed outside the vehicle. The Fathom puts the inverter in its onboard "E-box" and can supply over 10 kilowatts of household-style power. A kilowatt measures how much power flows at one time.

Ford says that power can run appliances, back up a home during an outage, or feed energy back into the grid.

What it costs

You still need some hardware. Ford is targeting these prices, and none are final:

• Ford Home Power Station: aimed at 50 percent below the $1,310 Ford Charge Station Pro.
• Station plus backup panel for whole-home blackout power: about $3,123, down from a typical $5,205.
• That is a cut of roughly 40 percent for the full backup setup.

To send power back to the grid, you need the Home Power Station. For whole-home backup in a blackout, you pair it with a backup panel.

Utilities are part of the plan

Red tape from power companies can slow these projects down. Ford teamed up with five large utilities: PG&E, American Electric Power, BC Hydro, Consumers Energy and Exelon. Together they serve millions of customers in the US and Canada. They agreed to cut paperwork for basic storm backup, use common plugs and software, and make grid programs automatic. Ford expects other utilities to follow whatever rules these five settle on.

What is still unknown

The savings will not cover everything. Homeowners will still face costs for permits, electrician labor and heavy-gauge wiring. Those could keep the feature out of reach for some buyers. Final pricing for both packages is also still pending.

The Fathom is the first vehicle on Ford's new Universal Electric Vehicle Platform, which Ford has called its "Model T moment." Keeping costs low is still a challenge, with supply chain limits and trade upheaval in the way.