Alright, now we're cooking with...

car.

@TechConnectify Wow

@TechConnectify My hero

@TechConnectify Wait what??!???

@TechConnectify this is the future liberals want

@TechConnectify now that's what I call fast food

@TechConnectify My car range is measured in pasta pans.

@TechConnectify External Cookbustion Engine

@TechConnectify pity its not induction

@TechConnectify For a split second I thought that was an induction charger…for the car. 🙃

@TechConnectify The internet: you can’t cook or drive without burning fossil fuels!

Alec: Hold my hot plate

@TechConnectify ah yes. wait no what

@TechConnectify WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT

@TechConnectify hang on, this could actually be pretty cool for camping!

(Ignore the below text unless you know the Elijah Wood interview meme)
*Musical interlude during interview*
Do you camp?
Have you camped?
You are a smart man, very smart man
Will you camp?

@TechConnectify thanks i hate it

@TechConnectify I've powered my Traeger pellet grill (which requires power to run the feeder/burner) off my car. It's fun!

@TechConnectify you look positively radiant

@TechConnectify Pah! I can do that with my car, too!

*sucks on a hose, fills a diesel burning stove*

@TechConnectify With spray mud. Nice.

To explain, this is my car's vehicle-to-load function in action.

A simple adapter signals the car to backfeed AC voltage from an inverter to the charge port (This is a generic adapter, btw, teardowns of the official unit reveal it's basically just a resistor across the control pins).

This adapter turns the car into a generator capable of running basic necessities for days. You gave the full 15A of any outlet at your disposal.

Pretty neat™

@TechConnectify Wish my stupid Tesla had V2L, very jealous.

How many kW does the IONIQ’s inverter support? 🚗⚡️

@TechConnectify @yatil

@whreq Exactly that! Can't really show that energy is leaving the car in a still image with an induction cooktop, now can we?

@TechConnectify that's one beefy alternator to build into the car solely for this probably rarely-used purpose - or does the car have internal 120V receptacles anyway?

@TechConnectify incredible

@TechConnectify Wow, way simpler than I expected. Nice!

@lambda Every E-GMP platform car comes with this ability from what I gather, regardless of whether they have an outlet on the interior or not.

Mine does also have that outlet (and it uses the same invertor), but a key part of this feature is that the car stays "asleep" so you don't have all the other accessory loads competing for energy.

@danbrotherston All of Hyundai/Kia's E-GMP platform cars can! It's a neat feature they built-in.

@tebriel Seems fine! There are 2 limitations, though:

It doesn't have any sort of weather seal so it cannot be used outdoors. Not an issue for me since I would only use this for emergencies when the car is parked in the garage anyway

Second, that little nubbin between the two slots of the AC plug is the button that actually signals the car to send charge. So you need a tight-fitting cord to be firmly inserted in order for it to work

But it feels well-built, and for $129 it's easier to swallow

@TechConnectify No idea about early model Kona-E?

@TechConnectify
If there's some steam/bubbles comming out of the pot on it's top?
@whreq

@tebriel Probably for the best. If you felt safe enough I suppose you could fashion some sort of cover (or even zip tie a grocery bag to it?) but that would be a bit sketchy

@TechConnectify

Not a gas hob 🙂🤷‍♂️

@TechConnectify Are there other adapters that give you 220-240v?

@lambda @agocs I suspect it's part of the on-board charger and not the traction motor inverter. That would certainly be the simplest way to make this happen since that's where the wires from the charge port actually go.

@TechConnectify
Both your stove and automobile should use gas - as God (and petrochemical industrial complex) intended ;-)

@wizputer Well... probably not. The car can do that in markets where that's the normal line voltage, but those cars have the Type 2 connector.

Perhaps it's just a different resistor value to signal 230 rather than 120, but I would bet Hyundai felt that too risky and NA market cars can only do 120

@pandapoo Here in the US, just 1.9 (which is probably rounding up from 15A @125V).

So it's definitely not "power your whole-house" levels of power, but it'll handle your fridge, freezer, modem/router, and some lights just fine. You might need to unplug the fridge for a bit to give you headroom to use the microwave but as a temporary emergency power source - not a big deal.

I'll be curious to find out how efficient this is if/when I need it.

@TechConnectify I want one!

@pandapoo In theory, starting with 80% charge it should be able to run those basics for a solid week before it hits 20% (assuming 300W draw average, which is probably high), but that's assuming no losses and I'm sure there are some.

@colin
Fossil fuels are still being burned somewhere in the chain. Even if it is only manafacturing or shipping.
@TechConnectify

@minecraftchest1 @colin oh noooo guess there's no point to reducing their use so long as we use any at all

@TechConnectify Very nice! Does it have any protection - e.g. needing the key in? Or can I cook my dinner on anyone's car while they're away?

@TechConnectify Not what I envisioned. I pictured in my head something more along the lines of "now we're cooking with MacBook".

Which, yes, is a thing.
Intel Power™

I guess engine block cuisine may have become too mainstream? 🤔

@penguin42 The car won't open the charge door unless it's unlocked.

Also, when this is in-use it becomes locked to the car and will stay so if the car is locked.

@crash I mean, literally any temporary power source is. Generator, battery bank, what have you.

Pretty meaningless to point this out.

@TechConnectify

Is the charger circuit set up for it? Some people are clever and make double-male extension cords to plug their generator into their house, but it's horribly dangerous for maintenance workers to back-feed power to the grid. This isn't that is it?

@robert No, this is meant strictly as a temporary thing.

@TechConnectify those huge-ass coil eaters are just cringe...

@TechConnectify So you’re telling me Ford didn’t even need to use the CCS pins on the charge connector to use the backup power feature on the Lightning?

@RyDawg To be a whole-home backup, you need a way to recreate split-phase 240. The charge port can't do that (it can only send either 120 or 240) so to provide that particular functionality, you would indeed need an offboard inverter and in that case you might as well give it access to the battery pack's DC.

In theory, though, this could provide 48A at 120V which would make it quite a capable generator. It just won't be able to power an big stuff like central air.

@TechConnectify ah yeah, I see now. Sorry, I didn't look closely at the photos! It's just a quieter, better generator

@TangoAndToys Honestly that's not a bad use! Almost worth it just for that (though I also have the plug on the interior so... not strictly necessary in my case)

@TechConnectify Before the picture came into focus, I thought it was going to be barbecuing over a flaming EV battery.

(Still better that barbecuing over a flaming lead-acid battery. I saw one of them once, as I ran far away, spewing out smoke and sulphuric acid fumes.)

@TechConnectify
Added a 1 KW inverter to my Prius to run my furnace fan during power outages, been thinking about adding a 700 watt kettle so I can have french press on the go

@deetlebee Power outages and/or camping

@TechConnectify @wizputer Fascinatingly, the 240V one for the NZ market is capable of (and has the appropriate socket) for 15A - I would characterise that socket as pretty rare residentially at least https://www.hyundai.co.nz/v2l

@Suran @lambda It doesn't. And it can't.

This is V2L, not V2G - so it's just meant as a temporary thing.

Models sold in 230V markets sent 230V out for this feature, but there's no way for it to be dual-voltage here as far as I know. Feels like a recipe to fry things so I imagine it's configured to only output 120V in NA market cars.

@cjd @deetlebee I'd encourage you to take a moment and imagine some of the many other things you can do with an electrical outlet besides run a hot plate.

@TechConnectify
That’s really awesome!

@TechConnectify That sounds pretty incredible to be honest, 1.9kW would be plenty in a pinch. We have a Jackery-like-thing which will do 2.2kW and is plenty to keep the natural gas boiler operating and anything else that isn't trying to turn that power into heat basically. Pretty neat!

@cjd @deetlebee OK, but I don't have a generator. I only keep enough gas around for my snowblower.

I do, however, have this car. Conveniently, it's always where I am! And now, if there's a power cut, I can keep my fridge plugged in, keep my modem online, and cook when I need to all without investing in a generator. And I can do that for at least a few days straight.

Maybe other people can use things differently than you imagine.

@TechConnectify excuse me, why is this not an induction stove?

@TechConnectify

This is slightly less janky than when I just plug a 1000w inverter into the 12v battery and leave the car running so it doesn't go dead.

@TechConnectify What gets me excited about your adapter there is that we have around 100kWh+ of capacity between two electric cars at home (a Model 3 and a Leaf) and no way to get the power out of them in an outage. Last time there was a power cut we were charging phones from the USB ports in the car but wish we could have plugged the house into it.

Is there a lovely in-depth video coming on V2L? Would love to see it. 🙂

@pandapoo Eh - maybe? I am always gonna cheerlead the flexibility of batteries - and I really like how Hyundai implemented this. Really all EVs should offer similar.

For now, you could probably invest in a beefy inverter and hook it up to the 12V battery of the Leaf. Not quite as elegant and the car needs to be powered up, of course, but I believe their onboard DC-DC converters will handle well over a kilowatt. Might be worth looking into.

@TechConnectify No no, I get it. It makes perfect sense. It's mostly the gut reaction from a lifetime of being around gas-cars that makes one shout. I think it's really cool that you could use your car as a battery for all sorts of things like emergencies, or even saving on rated electric costs.

@TechConnectify This sci-fi dystopia we've found ourselves in isn't all bad.

@TechConnectify so you could charge another electric car, right?

@cjd @teknomunk Y'know, I didn't think I'd have to explain that this is a combination demonstration and play on "cooking with gas" but I guess I do.

This is just one of the many, many, MANY things you can do with this feature. I figured that would be obvious.

@dalius_berger Indeed you could! It would be slow, but you could.

@TechConnectify ping @FabianLaasch 🖖

@TechConnectify @RyDawg

Strictly speaking you don't need to create split-phase to power your house through a transfer switch.

You can get an adapter that merges the X and Y on a split-phase inlet. You'll have 0v across any dual-pole breakers but all of the 120v loads will work fine.

The only minor caveat is if you have shared neutrals on two branch circuits that were designed to be opposite phase you could overload the neutral wire if you run max current on both circuits.

@ScottEvtuch @RyDawg Sure, but then it's not a whole-home backup. None of your high-power stuff would work.

@TechConnectify I'm sure this is absolutely fine and probably even something they thought about at the design stage, but it just seems awfully sketchy. Is this what they mean when they talk about "range anxiety"?

@TechConnectify @RyDawg

I'm guessing most people can live without their 240v loads in an emergency unless they are on well water. In a lot of American homes the only 240v appliance is the central air conditioner.

@flexplate The goal was simple - create an easy way to get power *out* of the battery pack to use for whatever the hell you want.

Since the charge connector normally has 120-240V AC going *into* it, which then gets rectified and changed to DC, it's not that much of a stretch to let the onboard charger work in the opposite direction.

Vehicle-to-load and vehicle-to-grid technology isn't a new idea, but it's only now starting to get implemented with regularity.

@ScottEvtuch @RyDawg People interested in having an electric car probably have more loads than that. Besides, it's as simple as this - they're selling it as a "whole home backup"

It needs to provide split-phase 240.

@TechConnectify Absolutely agree, batteries are this fantastic technology which seems to go largely ignored. Smoothing the peaks and troughs of renewables at grid level being a particularly exciting component.

I think you’re right about the DC-DC in the leaf, I’ve watched a few videos of people doing the same – time to have a play myself!

A shame perhaps that CHAdeMO’s bi-directionality (as on the Leaf) didn’t win the connector wars. 🤷‍♂️

@TechConnectify @RyDawg

Does the Ford home integration kit not output split-phase 240v? I can't find any confirmation either way online, but the fact that it needs to be installed by an electrician and that the truck already supports 240v outlets makes me think it probably does.

@ScottEvtuch @RyDawg OK, so you seem to be missing some context. The OP was asking if this is proof that Ford didn't need to use the DC pins of the CCS connector for their whole-home backup.

It's not - Ford's system send DC battery voltage (through the DC pins) out to an offboard inverter which then provides the true split-phase needed for your house.

The AC port only has three power pins: L1, L2/N, and GND. It doesn't *also* have neutral when charging at 240V

@ScottEvtuch @RyDawg So there's no way for the charge port to send anything out but single-phase voltage. It could do 240 or 120, but it can't do both at the same time.

That's presumably the reason Ford did what they did. The AC connector can handle 80A - and that's certainly enough to power a house (if managed). But if send back as 240V across L1 and L2, none of your 120V stuff would see a circuit at all.

@TechConnectify
Induction hotplates provide a lot more miles per kW.

@TechConnectify Oddly made me think about one of the Farm Series where Peter and Alex ate eggs that were cooked on a shovel in a locomotive's firebox. No doubt eggs cooked on this would taste far better and be safer to consume.

@TechConnectify tagging @mfeilner because this is neat

@TechConnectify no heat pump based stoves out there?

@danbrotherston Simple - this is outside the car and doesn't require the car to be powered on to work. Means the car can be off and locked, but still useful as a portable power source.

And, there are already wires which carry AC power going between the weatherproof charge port and onboard charger. Why /not/ reuse them?

@danbrotherston That's the reason this feature is standard on E-GMP platform cars. The charger just needs to be able to send power both ways.

What's optional is in fact a second household outlet inside the car. It uses the same inverter, but now needs a new run of wiring.

If you ask me, this is the most straightforward way to go about it. The adapter is literally just J1772 to NEMA 5-15 with a resistor between the signal pins to tell the car it's there and to send voltage to it.

@TechConnectify really wish my EV had this feature. I expect to have my current car for a long time, but I feel like this is a MUST HAVE feature for my next EV.

@TechConnectify it’s… a battery an inverter, not a generator, right?

Or is Hyundai doing some weird hybrid stuff I don’t know about?

@TechConnectify mmmm ioniq 5

@TechConnectify
I think that a change needs to happen everywhere, and no - that was not my point (meaning your comment). (: :)
@colin

@TechConnectify I suppose one could do that with ANY car. :)

(It ain’t that uncommon, after all, to use a car to ignite the engines of a model rocket.)

@jason Yes, I'm using the term generator because you use this like you would a portable generator

@TechConnectify that's a very inefficient way to produce heat, if you are outdoors you may prefer burn some sticks and start a little fireplace for cooking

@TechConnectify got it. Was less nitpicking and more wondering whether there was some generation component. My 2020 Volt purchase seems so long ago lately 😬

@TechConnectify when can we expect 15A electric kettle boiling times?

@TechConnectify @donmelton

but can you make a good shish ka-Billie-bob

https://youtu.be/_jgeZCf79HM#t=1m18s

@TechConnectify god damn didn't know you were on here

@TechConnectify can you make it backfeed the HVDC port, and weld some tank armor with that?

@TechConnectify Great, but now do induction.

@TechConnectify where can we buy this plug? 🤩

@TechConnectify @penguin42 how does it interact with driving the vehicle (you can probably see where I'm going with this!)?

@TechConnectify This is awesome. Can it double as the ev replacement for a 1 gallon gas can that will get you to a gas station, i.e., could you give your stranded office mate 10 miles of range to get to a fast charger? Although thinking about it mode 1 charging would work most places, except the side of the highway somewhere.

@TechConnectify Fungible energy is fungible

@TechConnectify wait.

what car lets you pull power out of the car battery via the charger port?

Is that a standard J1772 connector or is there something special going on there?

@alienghic I did explain further in a reply. This is a feature of the E-GMP platform cars from Hyundai/Kia.

@mikej Yes, but being Level 1 charging it's gonna be slow. 4 miles of range per hour is about all you'll get.

@TechConnectify new seat heater?

@kd0ioe Yes, it gives a reading on the dashboard of how much is being drawn and it will disable output if it goes too high.

I just tested it with my microwave which pulled, according to it, 1.7 kW. Which is like 14 amps

@kazriko The battery is 77.4 kWh. That's gigantic.

Using that hot plate for an hour on high will eat through less than 2% of the battery charge.

Plugging my fridge, freezer, and modem in (the only three things I really care to keep live continuously) would draw, probably, 200W on average *at most*. Half a battery charge would last over a week, leaving plenty of room for cooking.

@kazriko Like, even if you *maxed out* that outlet - drew the full 15A solid - you can do that for over 40 hours.

I'm mainly telling you this because I don't think it's healthy to make yourself afraid from suppositions - do the math and work it out.

There's so much margin here that I would happily use the car for three or four days as a backup power source before I worried about getting somewhere. And I've (luckily) never lived through a power outage that long here in Illinois.

@kazriko That's fair, but in my experience they're only overcome when examined.

Having this car actually *eliminates* my fear of an extended power outage. Bad weather in the forecast? Charge it to 100% before it rolls in and now I'm prepared. I have no use for a generator at this point.

Since this is doing numbers - this is not a universal feature of EVs! You can't just buy this adapter and expect it to work.

This adapter is specific to Hyundai/Kia E-GMP platform cars (so, right now, the Ioniq 5, soon-to-be Ioniq 6, Kia EV6, and Genesis GV60).

However, V2L and V2G tech will undoubtedly spread to more and more models - and some are already capable of providing whole-home power backup (like the Ford Lightning).

Batteries: they're pretty neat™

@TechConnectify I looked it up earlier today and saw it wouldn’t work with my car. Sad. But maybe the EV6 will be my wife’s new car!

@tebrown It's a great car!

@ironiridis I haven't put it on a scope but it seems really good! To test it I put a fridge on there, my microwave, a dehumidifier, that antique fan you've seen in a few vides, and toaster oven. All sounded completely normal with no weird ringing artifacts or anything like that, so that leads me to believe it's a very good sine wave.

At some point I'll whip out the scope and find out for sure

@TechConnectify The EV6 also has a 120 volt plug below the center of the back seats. I assume the Ioniq 5 does as well.

@TechConnectify @RyDawg Maybe they should come up with an EV charging connector that supports multiple phases. Wonder if anybody else has ever thought of that. 🤔

@the_other_jon It's optional, at least in the 5. V2L is standard, though.

@jez @RyDawg On faith you're not being facetious, there's essentially no point to doing this for the North American market. This is like the one place where an extra pin might be helpful - and it's for a super niche purpose.

@TechConnectify @tebriel It's also notably smaller. I don't have either of the adapters, but I do have the extra outlet under the rear seat, and have used it a few times. Very handy!

@TechConnectify Rivian just announced via Reddit this week that every car they’ve sold up until this point is V2H capable and they’ll be bringing the feature later this year. Pretty awesome!

@TechConnectify I wish there was a 240 volt V2L option, or some way to provide a charge to another EV.

@TechConnectify

120V V2L is neat and cool for cars that don’t otherwise already have 120V outlets (like the Rivian which has 120V 15A).

Really looking forward to 240V V2L @ 32-48A. So you can L2 charge another vehicle or power several devices of 120-240V.

@TechConnectify Makes me wonder what sort of runtime you'd get for whole-home power (I haven't really kept up with the EV market enough to know the average watt-hour ratings), and what the spec says the maximum draw is.

May be just me being cynical, but I almost get the feeling that they can't realistically transfer over an entire home load, at least some would have to be shed first. But given that I live in a house filled with servers, my point of view may be a little skewed.

(Plus, wouldn't you need to get a transfer switch installed to your EVSE anyways to ensure grid safety? Or some other mechanism to prevent you from turning that feature on with the main breaker enabled and backfeed the entire grid instead?)

@TechConnectify BYD also have this feature.

And some EVs have actual plug sockets

Something Tesla should be adding asap I think

@TechConnectify This honestly gives a different meaning to the phrase "engine cooking". And I'm all for it.

@TechConnectify my understanding is that CHAdeMO supported this as a standard part of its protocol, so presumably such an adapter is also available for the leaf

@Rjdlandscapes For such a supposedly innovative company, they sure do miss some pretty obvious features

(also, this car does indeed have a plug socket inside, but the beauty of this adapter is that you can use it with the car closed up, locked, and powered off. The legit Hyundai version is weatherproof, too)

@fluffy CHAdeMO did V2G as standard, but I'm not sure about V2L - I don't know if that connector ever had any ability to run AC through it at all

@TechConnectify yeah esp on the software side. But then they are I think focused on scale more than anything.

Afik the old wheelhouse electronics wouldnt support bidi on AC not sure if thats changed now

@TechConnectify @lambda @agocs Yes, I would expect so. It’s not that hard to design a bidirectional inverter/charger, they’re used in stationary battery storage systems too (off-grid, etc.).

@TechConnectify @donmelton try an induction hob. It’s more efficient and cools down way quicker when out . Trust me ;/)

@TechConnectify why does it have a ground plug? There's no way it's actually properly grounded, is there?

@Ongion It may very well be monitoring for faults between live and ground and acting as a GFCI, but also - I mean you want to be able to plug stuff like an extension cord in and you couldn't do that otherwise.

@TechConnectify @RyDawg Could you use the 240V and an autotransformer to generate the split phase? Like this - https://www.victronenergy.com/autotransformers/autotransformers ? (see the diagrams in the datasheet)

@TechConnectify You mean coal-fired power plant (most likely)? (:

Where ya get your electrons from?

@druid do people seriously still think the grid is majority powered by coal? Because it's nowhere near that amount anymore.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

@TechConnectify @drahardja that is super cool! But also nothing new…
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Manifold-Destiny/Chris-Maynard/9781416596233

@TechConnectify you must live in TX.

@TechConnectify now we just need to shop Amazon for a male to male NEMA 5-15P cable and you can run your house!

@TechConnectify oh, right, that makes sense. You could probably run an inverter off of the V2G though.

@TechConnectify oh right I use my chademo port so rarely I keep forgetting it’s totally separate from the j1772

@TechConnectify v2l has been one of my favorite features. Just got a transfer switched installed at home so I can use the car to keep the lights and fridge going during a power outage. It’s been amazing.

@TechConnectify @anthonyg one of the reasons my parents bought their Kia electric! they live out in the boonies and this way when the power goes out they have a giant battery (which they can recharge from solar)

between the solar panels, the giant rolling battery, and the wood stove, they have several days worth of power outage options before they even have to think about firing up the diesel generator

enough snow on the panels is a problem eventually, of course

@TechConnectify @the_other_jon yeah, I kinda wish I’d sprung for it on my EV6. Any idea if I could add it after the fact?

@TechConnectify And if you want a cooktop that matches the nerd level, IKEA has this single-zone induction cooktop:

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/tillreda-portable-induction-cooktop-1-zone-white-10493520/

@tebriel
Or just take a electric bbq, where ever you used to lug gas ones.

@TechConnectify Definitely agree with three-phase being overkill for home charging. Even in Australia, most homes only have a single phase.

But it's very common for me to get three-phase AC charging at a business or shopping centre here.

For modern cars, that means the difference between 7 kW and 22 kW; nothing to sneeze at considering it doesn't cost extra!

Even in North America commercial supply is three-phase, so I still feel like Type 2 plugs would have been worth it for that use case.

@TechConnectify That just makes me think that electric cars are just charged off an overgrown USB-C port...

@TechConnectify @the_other_jon hmm, isn't it standard in 2023 trims?

@TechConnectify brb charging my model3 from my housemates's ioniq5 :D

@TechConnectify Better than Red Green's way of using a car to cook. https://youtu.be/niegc7QcilM

@TechConnectify Burn rubber

@TechConnectify Years ago I gave a friend a book on how to cook on your car engine as a Christmas gift.

@TechConnectify Assuming the original charge from a wall outlet or supercharger, how much is being lost to conversion on initial charge and then vehicle to load inversion/conversion again? Seems more like a neat demo that practical use?

@TechConnectify @leigh if you could run an induction loop off it, and if you had some reasonably ferrous bit of the car adjacent to some reasonably meltable part of the car, you could have car cooking cooking car cooking car cooking car car.

@TechConnectify It really should become a requirement to sell an EV, so valuable for power outages. The Leaf has this feature in Japan but not here! They could simply do 12v with higher amps so people could use the millions of inverters that already exist, right? And in a couple years require them to be able to feed into the grid too. Solar panels on houses and EVs for storage creates a much more resilient grid.

@TechConnectify an induction heater, such as the IKEA ones would be more effective and safer, but not as obvious a picture.

@TechConnectify I KNEW the Ioniq5 was the future

@TechConnectify I'm resisting the urge to run a white gas stove off the gasoline in my pickup. But yes the electric stove argument is winning me over.

@TechConnectify It really depends on where in the country you are. Yes, many power plants in the U.S. are powered by natural gas and coal.