Right before Christmas, Canada’s southern Ontario was hit by a massive snowstorm that left hundreds of thousands of people without power, and dozens of car crashes happened because of the low visibility and slippery roads. It was nasty, to say the least.

Even though the local electricity supplier made great efforts to restore power to affected homes, some people were left in the dark for almost two days.

And here’s where the Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup comes into play, to save the day once again.

Reddit user u/RapsFanLJ used his EV truck to power his home essentials for 44 hours straight before grid power was restored. With a total of 11 outlets scattered around the truck, the Ford Lightning with Pro Power Onboard can output a total of 9.6 kW from its battery to power everything from hand tools to TVs.

What’s even more impressive is that the car’s state-of-charge (SoC) was at 65% after the owner unplugged everything from its outlets.

 

“44 hours without power in Southern Ontario! This baby saved us! We don't have it wired to our panel but the 2 cords with splitters ran our fridges, freezers, and our wifi, select lights, and TV for close to 2 full days. AND the battery was only down to 65%,” wrote the Lightning owner in the Reddit post embedded above.

This isn’t the first time an electric Ford F-150 put its onboard 110V and 240V outlets to good use. Last month, during a 6.4 magnitude earthquake that shook Northern California, a car dealer used a Lightning and a Kia Niro EV to keep the lights on, and a pair of Ford electric trucks were used to help with the cleaning-up efforts after floods swept Kentucky in August.

The Lightning can actually be used to power an entire house for several days if fitted with Ford’s Intelligent Backup Power option, which basically turns it into an automatic central home generator.

If F-150 customers don’t want the convenience, they can just get the standard Exportable Powerpack, which comes with eight 120V outlets that can output a total of 2.4 kW. The Pro Power Onboard option ups the number of outlets to 11, one of which provides 240V, and a total output of 9.6 kW.

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