Do you guys think the cybertruck will be usable as a generator for your home? I have one of those power inlet boxes with a 30 amp 4-prong thing and it would be amazing if I could power it with the truck instead of my gasoline generator! This would definitely be a huge selling point for me living in a house that loses power several times a year.
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Think we'll be able to use the cybertruck as a home generator?
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I don’t think so. It puts extra liability on them.
But with a 240 Volt plug, and a battery big enough for 500 miles, you should be able to charge another ev with the proper cable.
Ulmo
Active Member
1. Yes. They can't help it. If it outputs electricity for tools, it outputs electricity for anything. That anything electricity could be, somehow, by a competent electrical engineer, be turned into the electrons of the type, shape, format, position, pressure, characteristics, dynamics, and attitudes that would work to pour into the buckets that can be used for home use, with work and cost. There is no way around that physics fact.
2. It is known that it is unknown what power it puts out. I.e., how many watts. This is abundantly not known and abundantly missing (unless it has come out in the last day or so). We all want to know this. We recommend a high power level, such as the 45,000Watts Peak 15,000Watts Continuous of the inverters available at EVTV.ME (see EVTV Motor Verks Store: Sigineer 15kW 48v Inverter for Tesla Battery Modules, Tesla Model S Battery Modules, Vicor).
3. The Tesla CyberTruck is very specifically specified at 110VACrms/220VACrms output. That is not by accident. To push power into the electrical grid, it has to do a few things: (1) sync the phases. I promote the ability of all inverters to do this, regardless of what regulators and utilities want. Maybe we want to integrate it with an off-grid system that already has other energy sources such as backup generators and solar panels with their own inverters and phase timing. (2) It has to be a higher voltage than the power grid. 110VACrms is intentionally both within equipment operating specs for user equipment (i.e., it is high RMS voltage enough, being just above the minimum), and outside of the specs of the power grid (i.e., too low for power grid specs, being just under the minimum). Ditto for the 220VACrms specification. This has the effect that power will never be pushed out onto the grid in large quantities. I of course think this is a mistake, but it totally fixes the anti-competition mortal fear of the commies running the utilities, since it means that not only will Tesla CyberTruck owners not be able to power the grid from their trucks, but they won't even be able to supplement their own home microgrids in most cases unless the truck is the only generator on at the time, thus promoting the idea that indeed it is true farmer citizens should not own their own land and God's sunlight that falls upon it (i.e., land that collects and converts sunshine into material or metaphysical energy). By just stating those voltage specs, Elon has put every communist at ease. It might be a tease, but it is a real soft presentation for that crowd, and they will be lulled into not rebelling.
(Hint: grab a boost transformer if you really care; they aren't that expensive. Then realize you have to have everything else off and disconnected first with proper generator cutover switch, before you connect this, unless you have a phase matching setup with appropriate impedance provisioning and voltage matching, too. Or just put a cross-AC-AC-matching-tie inverter in there. I haven't seen any on the market, but 2x most of the existing inverter chargers could probably swing it, albeit you might have to slap a battery or two in between them to make it work, and maybe some other trickery. Well, like I said, just get a competent electrical engineer with sufficient imagination.)
Unknown. We shall find out. Likely, it will be troublesome to do, and not impossible; i.e., you wouldn't necessarily be able to do so directly, but someone could make a kit that you could build that you plug into that does do that. See my entire discussion above. Likely, commies will make certain that it will not be UL listed, so you will have to buy components yourself and make it yourself. We shall see.
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kirbo20
Member
I tweeted Elon this morning and asked. No response but I wasn’t really expecting one.
Travis Kirby on Twitter
Travis Kirby on Twitter
Tam
Well-Known Member
Yes in a limited sense.
People have been able to use their 12V from their Tesla as a portable generator in a blackout but it's limited and you can't power much.
For CyberTruck, you can use it as a portable 240V generator but I doubt that it'll be enough for your home.
Most likely, Tesla would limit the amperes to make sure you won't be able to do more than a small "portable generator".
We won't know until the specs come out.
I would hope that the Cybertruck has a NEMA 14-50; You could power a refrigerator, a microwave and some lights for quite a while - especially if you do it intermittently! Assuming a 100 kWh battery, I guess you could draw 9.6 kWh for almost 8 or 9 hours, assuming a high efficiency inverter and fully charged battery.
As an added benefit you can park it in the house so the extension cord can be shorter. Cannot do that with a generator!
ok, here is my idea of how the Cybertruck could be used in conjunction with an off grid house. This is specifically for areas that have a change of seasons where there is considerably less sunlight in the winter. You would also need easy access to charging, perhaps at work , or a supercharger.
The problem is there are far fewer hours of sunlight available in the winter. For example in the Toronto area there are approximately 5 times more hours of sunlight available in july vs decemember. So what you would do is size your PV system to meet your needs in the spring and fall. In the summer you have excess electricity, which you use to charge your Cybertruck. In the winter you do the reverse, you come home as fully charged as possible and use the Cybertruck to charge you battery bank, (which may be a power wall)
The problem is there are far fewer hours of sunlight available in the winter. For example in the Toronto area there are approximately 5 times more hours of sunlight available in july vs decemember. So what you would do is size your PV system to meet your needs in the spring and fall. In the summer you have excess electricity, which you use to charge your Cybertruck. In the winter you do the reverse, you come home as fully charged as possible and use the Cybertruck to charge you battery bank, (which may be a power wall)
What we really want is the truck to work just like a Powerwall!
Thinking about it from a trades/tools point of view, there's very few tools that require 220 volts. Certainly not portable ones (maybe you'd setup a "shop" in a trailer, with bigger equipment powered by the truck?) So why put the 220 plug? The only tool I could think of, is a welder (or other metal working equipment) - which generally draws quite a lot of power, so I'd have to believe its a pretty high output inverter? So at the very least, it should work as well as a small / medium sized generator if your power was out?
Thinking about it from a trades/tools point of view, there's very few tools that require 220 volts. Certainly not portable ones (maybe you'd setup a "shop" in a trailer, with bigger equipment powered by the truck?) So why put the 220 plug? The only tool I could think of, is a welder (or other metal working equipment) - which generally draws quite a lot of power, so I'd have to believe its a pretty high output inverter? So at the very least, it should work as well as a small / medium sized generator if your power was out?
Yes. I keep a small gas generator just for my reef aquarium. Once I have a cyber truck I can ditch that and be completely gas free. With that battery I could keep my kids warm in the car itself for the duration of a power outage as well if needed.
MichaelP90DL
Active Member
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