Hybrid Owners - Power Cuts: Will Your Car be Part Of Any Contingency Plan?

[Gerg]

There will be no power cuts this winter.  How do I know?  Because Liz Truss said so a few months back.

But, what if she was wrong?

I have a couple of small 12v/240v inverters that I bought ages ago (the largest is 600w).  It would be helpful if these could be put to use to get the gas central heating and some other small appliances to operate.  But this has plenty of safety hazards, I appreciate that.

Is anyone on this forum considering using their car similarly i.e. having their hybrid as a quiet, reliable, well-silenced electrical generator, with the benefit of a big-ish fuel tank and electric starting?

There are plenty of YouTube videos of people doing this in the US, and even living/camping in their hybrid, but what about over here?

[Yugguy1970]

No but I did look at a domestic UPS for running the freezer in the garage off.  We can live without electric for a few hours, might even have to talk to each other a bit more but I wouldn't want food to go off if power was lost for extended periods.

Not cheap though unfortunately.

[Gerg]

33 minutes ago, Yugguy1970 said:

No but I did look at a domestic UPS for running the freezer in the garage off. 

Good point!

This is exactly one of the problems anyone might have thought through - and any temporary supply would have to be grunty enough for the freezer motor start current, the more so if your fridge was also being asked to start up at exactly the same time (because you'd forgot to phase the start up of those two.)

Obviously, kettles, toasters, microwave ovens and electric hobs aren't viable with a small car-generator setup.  But your fish tank would work, no problem!

[Rhymes with Paris]

This is interesting, makes me think if an integrated system exists.

For example, for those with plug in hybrids, could a two way flow be used, with mains power going to the car from the house supply.

And if the house supply is cut,then flow the other way, and start the engine (generator).

I don't know the kind of amps developed by current hybrid systems, I understand that volts would be no problem with inverters.

For myself though, I have an old Yaris, two boxes of candles, and some strong mints for heating.