How To Power Your House In an Emergency From Your Electric Car

[@tarassu]

AFAIK negative should go to chassis as there is a current measuring device that needs to measure current flow from the car.

[@crashk6]

To address the comments about battery connection, the primary reason for the practice of automotive frame connection of the negative lead is to prevent hydrogen fires and explosions caused by arcing when making temporary un-fused battery connections. It also adds some resistance to the connection to lower the in-rush current if one is connecting a depleted battery to a charged battery, as with jumpstarting. Electric and hybrid vehicles tend to use sealed lead acid 12 volt batteries, especially when housed inside the passenger cabin, so there is much lower risk of hydrogen explosions during connection. Though even connecting an inverter may cause a brief spark as the capacitors in the inverter charge up. Any significant long term load running on croc/alligator clips is going to cause some heating of the connection, as these are not meant to run current for hours on end. With the amperage draw from any substantially loaded inverter, direct terminal connection is actually preferred. Something like Anderson power-pole connectors are far more desirable as a means of connection. Something else very important to keep in mind is find out how many amperes the dc-dc converter in your hybrid or electric car can deliver. For example my Prius has a 100 amp main fuse, this means the very top end power available100 x 12 (nominal) = 1200watts the car needs 200 just to be in ready mode, and you never really want to draw full power so we'll throw away another 200 watts for headroom, leaving us an approximate 800 watts of safe capacity in the case of my Prius, or roughly 66 amperes of draw. The direct battery connection for my 12 volt inverter has an 80amp MRBF fuse right on the battery before going on to the Anderson connectors. This value is lower then that the the main fuse ratting of the car to protect it and the dc-dc converter, but higher than our 66 amperes to allow for starting surges of appliances... and because you wont really find a 66 amp fuse. This back of napkin math works for a Third generation Prius and most other electric and hybrid vehicles as the industry seems to provided between 100 & 175 amps from the dc-dc converter on most production models. As for sensors in the car, most of the sensors at the battery post are thermal sensors, though there are some vehicles which are exceptions and do have a current sensor at the terminal; in most cases this is not an issue. Having extension cords running through the house like that is not a ideal, though I do understand that in Nikki's rental, that was the only real option. Be sure the the "heavy duty" cord you use is 12 or 14 AWG or equivalent metric cross-section if outside the US.. Many cords sold in the states as "heavy duty' are in fact only 16 AWG. The larger the AWG number, the smaller the wire and the less power it can handle. I, like other commenters, give a vote for pure sine-wave inverters, they do cost a bit more, but avoid all the problems Nikki spoke about. If you own your home, you can have an interlock or transfer switch and power inlet installed where you park, this lets you just plug the car into the inlet and run things safely via the outlets already in your home. If your really ambitious, need more then 800 watts of power, and are willing to go the extra mile on research, there are inverters available that can be permanently installed in your car, or off-board in the house, and connected directly to the traction battery on the high voltage DC side, which in most cases can let you power even moderate 240 volt loads, like a well pump, just as you would from a typical generator.

[@tarassu]

Leaf does have current sensor with temp sensor. Though, AFAIK, it doesn't actually do lot of current measuring. And as Nikki did connect directly to battery and nothing weird happened, pretty much says that car (at least Leaf) doesn't actually care. As far as crocodile connection, I would avoid those. they scratch lead terminals and have extremely small surface area touching the terminal itself. I would use use O or U connection that goes under the nut that tightens terminal to battery pole. Large surface area and easy to mount-unmount. Also wiggling will not lose connection as with clip-on connection might happen. pop.h-cdn.co/assets/cm/15/05/54c83d372c195_-_battery_carradio-lg.jpg

[@jfbeam]

The current shunt is in the traction battery system (inside the battery pack.) There isn't one on the 12v aux power subsystem.

[@tarassu]

Look at the negative terminal. There is a sensor with 4 wires.

[@avvarutheja]

@@crashk6 Thanks Crashk6 and Nikki. I took this video as reference and built a inverter system for my home, to use during power shutdown/emergency. I have purchased pure sinewave inverter and hooked up the inverter to Nissan leaf and generator inlet of my house. As I have interlock system on home electric panels, grid power & generator power gets separated safely. To make sure I am not drawing more power from battery, I have added fuses properly on the lines. This whole setup was able to deliver about 1000 watts continuous and 1500 watts at maximum. While drawing 1000 watts, my nissan leaf range dropped about 5 miles per hour, which is fairly decent in my view.

[@KE6VRK]

With my Nissan Leaf I powered a veterinary clinic where I work because of a power cut that happened during a power transformer replacement during a bad wind storm. We didn’t power the high power stuff (X-Ray) but we powered the point of sale equipment, computers, phone system, and the refrigerators (full size ones ) which have all the vaccines. I used one of my true sine inverters that I used on my house before I upgraded to a larger true sine. It worked fantastic and worked so well that it ran for several hours - basically a whole day shift. We had full lighting in all treatment rooms and surgery and continued operations like normal. I only lost 1 bar from a 75% charged car. Thank you Nissan Leaf!!! The other clinics in the area had to shut down (no power ) and we got patients from the other clinics nearby funneling into ours. The owner loved it so much that I installed solar panels and a battery backup system for the clinic. He is going to buy a Nissan Leaf also.

[@ahaveland]

Great story, thanks for sharing!

[@vadymvv]

Please write on the model of inverter you use, very interesting story.

[@somethingsomething404]

did you have cords going everywhere or just use a male-male plug into a dead plug on the circuit? im temped to do that as i know it works but not sure if it would backfeed to grid if i had breaker turned off

[@stevejordan7275]

How large an inverter did you use? 3kW? 5? How large is your Leaf battery? 24kWh? 30? 40? 62? I also have a Leaf with CHAdeMO, but everyone I see doing this connects to the 12V battery terminals under the hood. Nissan has a V2L/V2H/V2G solution, but they seem to only sell it in Japan.

[@davidhuber6251]

speaking as a professional electrician, you did a wonderful job on this video from start to finish. I learned stuff.

[@plasboot9636]

i think we all are leaning new stuff

[@SalemJaguars2012]

Thank you for this video Nikki! Picked up the last 800w inverter ($85) at the auto parts store on Saturday and used our 2016 LEAF to heat my family’s electric blankets and mobile devices for four and a half days until PGE restored our power. Recharged the LEAF at a nearby PGE (ironically) charging station each day. Could have gone on like this for a long time, but glad we didn’t need to. An inverter should be part of every EV owner’s survival kit.

[@benbrown8258]

This has just upped the value of an electric car in my opinion to a strong 10 points. Just checked with our project manager who works with solar ev, etc.. He said what you did was brilliant as we had been discussing emergency backup and I definitely do not want to support the fossil fuel industry further. There IS some homework to be done on my part as to what our local stores carry and my specific ev, but Nikki,.. you have no idea how important this idea is. You are a genius! (especially since no one else ever mentioned this.)

[@transportevolved]

I'm certainly not the first, and I'm sure there are better solutions!

[@Connexelectronic]

Chinese manufacturer BYD has built in so called VTOL (vehicle to load) feature on almost all its electric and hybrid vehicles. The AC/DC charger contains an inverter which can supply up to 3kW 230V AC 50Hz on the charging port using the dedicated VTOL plug (identical with the standard charging plug except a different value resistor between PP and Earth pins to activate the inverter).When the battery gets low the engine automatically start and charge it up to a preset value.

[@rp9674]

Use your EV VTOL VTOL

[@gene4390]

That's handy. Only suggestion make sure you get a "Pure Sine Wave" inverter. Square wave inverters are cheaper but can damage electronics over time.

[@robvanness9458]

I recently wired up a brand new, fairly cheap, 12v auto battery from Walmart ($62) to a 1000 watt inverter ($159) and charge it with a $50 8 amp charger, w/a trickle charge to maintain it. So far it has powered my pellet stove for 4 hours, as a test run. This worked so well, that I will continue to look into other solutions, such as the one you have presented here. Thanks for sharing!

[@richardking6066]

You could also do this with a hybrid car. It would use the ICE to charge the system intermittently - until it runs out of fuel!

[@transportevolved]

Just not inside!

[@takkadat]

I am in Charleston, South Carolina -- getting ready for Hurricane Florence. I've been researching this option and found your video --thanks for the detail and simplicity. I've set up to run a series of box fans to keep the house cooler after we loose power (anticipated). Great job -- Thanks!

[@christill]

It seems strange to me that there's no simple solution available yet which would use the charging port rather than this type of DIY solution, which is definitely impressive and it's great in an emergency. But we should have a more elegant option as well.

[@scottkolaya2110]

They are getting there. www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/nissan-leaf-electric-vehicle-to-grid/

[@willraee]

@@scottkolaya2110 years later they're still "getting there."

[@scottkolaya2110]

@@willraee lol, that is funny. Things do move slowly. Although there are a couple expensive solutions available currently using the CHAdeMO protocol with the V2X protocol, it'll cost you north of $4k, and nothing for the CCS ports except for Ford. Although Ford has been providing pretty beefy 7kW inverters on it's hybrid trucks, it now has a full whole-house backup solution on its new F150 lightning. "If you opt for the bi-directional 80-amp Ford Charge Station Pro, plus a home management system and an inverter needed to connect to your home, the F-150 Lightning will be able to output 9.6 kw of power through an Intelligent Backup Power function-enough to power the lights and appliances for days." Still getting there :-)

[@willraee]

@@scottkolaya2110 It ain't free though. Once you set everything up and spent thousands you might as well have bought a hefty fuel generator (much cheaper) for those rare occasions the power goes out.

[@scottkolaya2110]

@@willraee Rarely used backup generators will always be an economical challenge. That's why I've got a couple hundred dollar pure sine wave inverter that I can hook to my gas or electric car at any time. Nothing extra to maintain. It can sit for decades and still work the same when I hook it up. It only weighs a few pounds and my wife can hook it up any time.

[@otooleniall]

I've powered tv, modem etc from my Prius several times. Driveway and not in a garage and you can lock the car from the outside using the little key while the normal key fob is in the ignition. Only 300W max though @ 230v. The DC/DC is rated at 100amps and I was using max of 25A as a buffer as some of the cars loads would be used for radiator fan etc. 1kW does seem very large inverter to run continuously. I've got a petrol generator for the bigger stuff should power be out for more than a few hours like a storm.

[@imolazhp11]

Thanks Nikki. We had an ice-storm in Memphis a month or so ago that left us without power for 18 hours. We knew it was coming, or the possibility of an outage was coming, so we charged both our 2022 Y and our 2015 Leaf SL. If we had an inverter handy, we could have used it to power the blower on our forced-air gas furnace from our Leaf. We had wood, thankfully, and have a wood-burning fireplace, but the fireplace is a bit small and we were up all night stoking or adding wood, we would get about an hour of sleep and have to get up and mess with it. We also all had to sleep in the living room which was not very comfortable. Ordering a 750w to have on hand for the next outage. We do have solar panels, but our utility provider (that is overseen by TVA) doesn't allow us to use our power generated directly, we must sell 100% of our production on an outgoing only separate meter. They were likely covered in ice, but because we can't use the power we produce first, on a bi-directional meter, we didn't invest in a home battery when we installed the panels.

[@Kangenpower7]

Imola ZHP, your output of the solar system on your roof will not be "There" when you have a power outage. The solar system requires the grid to be working before that style of inverter can put out power to anything. If you are allowed to install a battery to your solar system, it will help a great deal, especially if you are allowed to run things such as your furnace fan from the solar inverter power. This will effectively take the furnace (and A/C) fan to be powered by the battery and not sell as much power to the TVA at a lower cost per KW, while not needing to purchase the TVA power at a higher rate to power your A/C fan. So it will save you money! I would suggest trying to switch the two circuit breakers that power lights in your home to the solar inverter power if you are allowed to install a battery pack and special inverter to your solar system in your home. Then at least some of the power needed by your home will be powered directly from your solar panels, not from the power you must sell to TVA at one price, then instantly buy back at another price.

[@joeozzie1]

@@Kangenpower7 Modifying the panels or adding battery storage may nullify the contract with TVA. When inquiring, they said they would modify my existing contract for battery storage, but it was a less desirable contract.

[@GaiaCarney]

Brilliant ✨ Thanks for creating & sharing this, Transport Evolved 💚

[@Colllinnn]

First time I understood sinewave in simple layman terms .Need to try this with my 500w inverter.....thanks for the great tips here .....majic.

[@WilliamJack-mz6uy]

Thanks for the detail. We are completely off grid, but with only 24 hrs battery storage, and use a diesel gen set to occasionally take up the slack on dark days. A bi directional charger is an arm and several legs, and your affordable system will allow us to trickle charge our house system without running our gen set.

[@caroncroteau3948]

Thanks for this. We have a country place where we often get power outage. We are pretty self sufficient so living without power is not really a problem, even in cold Canadian winters, but living without water is something else. I now know how to get my deep well pump running!

[@Kangenpower7]

You might be better off dropping a 12 volt pump into the well, and run a smaller hose to a smaller tank, so that you could use the 12 volt pump during a emergency, while using the larger pump for normal operation. The smaller pump might be dropped beside your current well pump, using a rope and a 100 foot long drinking water save garden hose (RV supply store) and tie off the hose to the rope every 25' or so to support the hose. Your main pump might be well over 1,000 watts, and might even be 220 volts. Best to look into this problem, before selecting a inverter. Also the electric car battery might get a considerable load on it while filling your well tank. If it is 2 HP, then running that pump might require a 4,000 watt inverter connected to a very large battery pack with very large battery wires, able to carry well over 200 amps at 12 volts to power the pump. It also depends on the depth of the water below your pump head. So if the water is 100' below your ground level, or house location, a small 12 volt pump will not be able to produce the 75 PSI at the pump in order to lift the water over 100 feet up to your house. While if you live in the country, and can drill a smaller well on a hill, above your home, it might be able to supply power with a smaller pressure pump, and be a great back up to your current pump.

[@PnPrailroad]

First reply and thumbs up but, I would suggest a "Pure Sign Wave Inverter". Worth the extra cash :-)

[@stevejordan7275]

@PnPrailroad I'd further suggest a Pure *Sine* Wave Inverter. Still...yes, well worth the added expense. I wonder if a 3kW inverter will still work without connecting to the CHAdeMO port?

[@scottkolaya2110]

@@stevejordan7275 A 3 kW inverter should work fine, but not continuous. I've hooked one up to my Chevy Bolt EV and it ran fine although you can only draw 1.6 kW continuously because that's the rating of the DC to DC converter from the high voltage battery to the 12 volt battery. But the AGM battery can easily sustain temporary draws of 3 kW.

[@stevejordan7275]

@@scottkolaya2110 Wow...that is EXTREMELY valuable intel. Thank you! Do you know how to connect to the CHAdeMO port? I can buy the connector by itself for about $100, but how much of the pinout do I need to know besides the two big DC feeds? Can I connect a 3kW inverter to them and power my house? I ask because the V2H solutions I'm seeing on the market start north of $4K, and if I only have to buy an big honking inverter and connect the battery DC to the mains with it (always remembering to disconnect the mains from the grid before doing so,) I think I could power my whole house *in a low-power mode* for days without having to run 50m extensions to the things I want to power...for less than a tenth of that. If needed, I could ride to an L3 station and charge up more. My Leaf is about to get a DIY upgrade to 62kWh, being able to tap it for emergency house power needs (we've had three multi-day blackouts since we bought it) should cost a lot less than it seems to at the moment. (Yes, I'm looking at *you,* "powerwalls.")

[@scottkolaya2110]

@@stevejordan7275 Ugg. I'm so sorry, I can't believe I missed the "CHAdeMO" part in your question. I've just connected to the 12v side. Sorry to get your hopes up. That's very cool about your 62kWh upgrade and I've seen the V2H solutions also which are very pricy. The problem with any DIY solution for power would be to find an inverter that can handle 400v DC input. Common off-grid battery packs are only 48V so the associated inverters are low voltage, and grid-tied inverters are in that range but only amplify the grid wave and usually don't generate one on their own and in addition they are mppt, so if the power draw is low, they keep boosting the voltage in order to push the most power back on the grid, which is not what you want in a house in an off-grid configuration. Although they usually stop raising the voltage at 265v. Then of course would be getting code (or writing it) to interface with the CHAdeMO V2X protocol to wake up the vehicle and close its contactors to get the DC to the port. None of this sounds easy or off the shelf. I'm an EE and and CE and would love a project like that but I don't have any vehicles with CHAdeMO and I'm guessing if I tried to send the proper signals to activate the contactors on my CCS port and started drawing current from the port rather than pushing current into, I'm sure the car would fault and shut down the contactors with a general "unable to charge" message on the screen. On the other hand, the new Ford F150 Lightning is supposed to have house backup capability along with using the internal inverter for powering tools and such. In the end, I think using the car's internal charger for two-way operation is the best solution. I've seen the schematic for Tesla's internal charger and it appears to be designed to both convert AC to DC and also DC back to AC using the same components.

[@ignasanchezl]

Awesome to learn that the DC DC circuit on the Leaf can provide 1KW on 12V, I've been wanting an old leaf for a while, but I really looked forward to bidirectional charging or vehicle to load/grid, yet apparently I cant find those devices anywhere and I don't even know if the earlier models have it enabled (thought the Chademo supposedly? Need another inverter?). Anyhow whenever I get one, I might just do this technique you showed here for a while. Until I can get it modded with an LFP battery and CCS, that, whenever EV's Enchanced starts selling their product.

[@D0li0]

Wow... What a throwback, ran across this when looking up my old NACS (SuperCharger) and Ford adoption announcement today.

[@jehugarcia]

alright hackery, my kind of thing

[@brisca3301]

Jehu do you think putting an EV (Leaf) on some sort of dyno/turbine/generator machine could work in having a mobile/portable energy store? Say you have excess solar production during the day where you can charge a couple EVs, then at night or during power failure, etc you simply set the car to run this machine and get the power out the battery that way. Car remains intact and fully usable...

[@gebhardt2]

If the electric device uses a motor for things like a fan or fridge compressor then you will prefer a pure-sine inverter so you don't prematurely kill the motor. If you are charging a laptop or monitor or things going through an AC/DC converter then a modified-sine inverter is fine.

[@TromboneAl]

Thanks. Note that if you usually charge your Leaf from home, you can simply use this setup until you get to, say, 5%, and then just wait for your power to come back on and recharge your leaf. IOW, you won't get stuck.

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

So, I just discovered your channel (first video I watched was your "edited via the power of Leaf" video!) and I love it! Thanks for a great channel! (And I was hit by the same storm, amazingly, even though a tree fell across our driveway - a tree that our power *AND* internet lines ran through - our power and internet stayed up and running. In general, we lose power every storm.)

[@voyagerman22]

Great video, thanks. How would I choose inverter size for my 2017 Chevy Bolt?

[@pintokitkat]

I've some solar panels on the roof (in the UK) but they can't be used to provide power to the house if there's a utility power cut. I understand the reason is that if the utility company cuts the power to work on the system, the engineer could still be fried of the solar from everyone's panels was allowed to feed current back into the system.

[@rp9674]

I guess you need a battery set up, hate that. I want an off grid system for that reason & more

[@williamcox1176]

Bloody good idea, i did think of try to take power off the main battery, but not off the starter battery. Very simple.

[@Kangenpower7]

The Leaf main battery voltage is very high, I think about 400 VDC, and there are no consumer inverters rated at over 48 volts input power, so you must only connect to the 12 volt battery, as stated in this very clever video! Thanks for posting the video.

[@BarrieM]

Great idea. We are just about to buy our first EV and I'd really like to be able to use it to help us get to net zero (we already have solar panels and a 5kWh battery, but the battery doesn't quite hold enough to get us through the night in the cooler months. Also I'd really like to have a backup system for our fridge and freezer in the event of a major power outage.

[@Muskar2]

We don't have natural disasters in Denmark, so I'm not really worried about things like that. But a few years ago, our local area had a 30 minute power shortage just after midnight. Not sure if it was just due to suboptimal grid management, a maintenance failure, or something actually happened. There was no news on it though.

[@Mladjasmilic]

But Leaf has an inverter for motor. Nissan, with simple contactor could disconnect motor and reroute power to charge plug. You would just need an adapter to connect house to car. That way you can have at least 50kW of pure sine wave.

[@oleksandrdemchyshyn2452]

Car battery gives DC, your house needs AC!!!!!! Motor uses 3 phase 380V AC!!!!!!

[@Mladjasmilic]

@@oleksandrdemchyshyn2452 Battery is 400V DC Inverter makes AC, with variable power and frequency. So it is easy to set at 230V 50Hz.

[@patrickcurtis5]

Gosh Nikki you can't do that with out a lot of expensive kit... unless a bright person in a jam, uses their head and thinks outside of the box!! Well done.

[@wily1532]

Thanks now I'm ready incase of power 🔋 shutdown here in oregon

[@0101Zero]

A difference between US and UK English. A "power cut" in the US is when they turn off your power because you didn't pay the bill. A "power outage" is what we say you experienced.

[@mollosillyrian3042]

0101Zero 😀👍🏻

[@rp9674]

Make a high-current extension cord - 12 - 16 guage cable, heavy duty plug, electricsl box & outlet recepticle, you can use a double gang box to make it a switced oulet so you can kill the load before you plug. Don't know if there's a better commercial ver. Also good for EVSE use so you don't weld the plug into the outlet... like i did.

[@m1aws]

If only the chademo port was open source so we could buy an efficient Leaf to home electric system. More than that. Most home appliances will run on DC to 400V quite nicely. The failings today are usually with motors used on pumps, many older fridges etc. The inefficiencies of leaving the car on, (250W), conversion, (DC-DC convertor) then to the lead acid battery (inefficient) and off through an inverter... Are sadly not great. But a 12V house would be the dogs..

[@callumburnett5922]

Glad to see another way I could used my crashed ion to power my grid tied solar and water turbine inverters in a power cut

Interresting Video! Some newer card offer a builtin inverter that feeds directly from the high voltage battery. In that case you only need a suitable extension cable.

[@mrjaffar]

A... I inquired in the UK about Powerwall and batteries in general... It does not mean that when the grid fails you can switch over to you battery and roof. Due to there being no safe way to ensure you are not sending current down your side of the local grid lighting up the technicians trying to fix the fault. I suppose you could isolate your end between the meter and your house circuit. But that's manual and I would not want yo rely on mr consumer not to forget to switch off!

[@chriswhite9912]

mrjunker in the states we have a device called an Automatic Transfer Switch, like those used with back up generators, that disconnect mains power (isolating home from grid) and switching to back up source, like gas generator or battery or whatever else you have. This is usually a safe and approved method to keep home energized without risking grid side. Does this help?

[@whocares264]

Very Good as usual

[@ZEROSTATIC72]

Full points for creativity Nikk, thanks. :-)

[@NWforager]

i great plus for those older Hybrids 💪🏽⚡

[@data1938]

I’m doing this with my Chevy bolt right now. Lost power in CA due to high winds.

[@jaybird7534]

Just set up a battery bank of 2 or 4 deep cycle batts offboard, then hook up the Leaf 12v battery via heavy #2 jumper cables to your offboard battery pack. That way you can hook up a 2 or 3kw PSW pure sine wave inverter and run larger loads for a couple hours. Then let your Leaf replenish the 24 or 4800w 12vdc offboard bank when household loads are off. Leaf will simply recharge your pack while you watch the ball game. That's what I do....;-)

[@brianmason1972]

I'm thinking about doing something like this and would be curious to see a basic diagram of how it's all hooked up

[@TheGoodsoj]

Okay so question here...would it be possible and what would the logistics be of doing this same setup with a Chevy Bolt and a motorhome. Would a person be able to run everything off the Bolt’s battery? If so would it also be possible to then trickle charge the Bolt through an inverter while driving the motorhome (towing the Bolt)?

[@victoriadalemckinnon4872]

Awesome! Thank you, Nikki

[@MattLesak]

Please do your homework on your specific vehicle. The LEAF ground should not be connected to the battery ground as it can damage the sensor that's measuring current. Follow the ground leads and there's other places you can connect that won't risk damage.

[@timlee6294]

Matt Lesak Agree the connection should be to the vehicle ground, not the 12V ground post. But unlikely the sensor would be damaged. It just leaves the LEAF not properly seeing the 12V discharge current. But the LEAF is in Ready so it is already holding around 13V to the 12V so it doesn't matter much. The significant reason is safety. Final connections when jumping vehicles or using the 12V for backup power should NOT be direct to the 12V battery posts. Risk is small. But the one in 10,000 explosion chance causes major injuries every year.

[@wattsup3124]

So use connection point 4 shown here for the -ve lead? www.mattcastruccinissan.com/blog/how-to-jumpstart-a-nissan-leaf/

[@timlee6294]

I think so. But the picture for point 4 is not all that clear. It is apparently a 2015 LEAF and my LEAF is a 2011. I think the point 4 is like a structural mounting bracket that should be grounded and that is what you want to connect to. Something grounded but away from the discharged battery that is failing to start the LEAF. On the 2011 and 2012 there is an electrical ground bolt on top near the windshield. But 2013 forward is different and was not as clear what is well grounded. But most metal structure and all metal of the inverter / charger / motor housing should be. The jumping instructions you referenced recommend taking vent covers off and covering with rag. I have never seen that done or given as an instruction. In my opinion opening the vent caps just increases safety risk and should NOT be done. Also the instruction says never use a LEAF to jump another ICE vehicle. Even though Nissan doesn't recommend it, the LEAF DC to DC for charging the 12V battery is very strong and puts out over 100 amps. With the LEAF in Ready it is the best thing to use for jump starting an internal combustion engine car with a dead battery. The very strong DC to DC converter is why the LEAF in Ready mode is an excellent 12V source to an inverter in a loss of grid power as Nikki demonstrated. The main risk is tripping on the extension cords!

[@TesladiMurbox]

Great video!!! It is more than time for the government to encourage the entire EV segment. The amount of peripheral technology is almost infinite, while that of fuel vehicles only sustains oligopolies and their lobbies. When will they see this blessed solution to solve this crisis of American unemployment? Given such a capacity of companies to form a structure much more self-sufficient than of vehicles to the fuels, segmented for each brand?

[@americanhindi]

Very helpful video. Thank you!

[@philshorten3221]

Help... Please I want to permanently connect my inverter so I have 240v available. But, does the inverter draw any power when not in use? Will this flatten the 12v battery? If so, do I need a high current switch to disconnect / connect the inverter manually when needed?

[@Kangenpower7]

Home refrigerators require a pure sine wave inverter. The 12 volt converter on the Leaf might only be rated at 1 KW - about 100 amps at 14 volts. If your inverter does not have a power line built in, a simple jumper cable would work great, keep it short, say 12" if you can! #4 wire is OK for 100 amps, or 1,200 watts. Smaller wire is not going to work very well. Remember that many things can be charged at different places, such as take along your laptop to charge via your inverter while charging at your local EV charge station. You don't need to keep the car 12 volt battery charger energized during the charging of small things, because it can recharge the small amount of power drawn from the 12 volt battery on the way back home. I have a 400 watt inverter built into my C-Max and it powered my CPAP machine just fine during a power failure last January, maybe the same one you lived through. I live in Fairview OR. I only suffered about 6 hours without power.

[@illya_od_ua]

I read that DCDC converter in leaf can do up to 135A (1700 Watt). Some say 130A, some insist on 72A. Hard to find definite answer.

[@yvs6663]

i am halfway thinking of buying a cheap inverter for when i go camping. but than again, the camping cooler and chargers could run from the 12v socket(about 80W combined) and the problem w them is that i would have to keep the car on all the time(which introduces some possibility of theft since anyone who manages to smash a window/trigger the unlock button from inside could drive off. but than stuff like cooking is easier done with a 20€ stove.

[@janiceburelle8015]

This was a very helpful video as I intend to set up my tesla model three with the extra battery pack to charge the house during the day Because I just got a quote from my local installer of tesla power wall’s and for two power walls it would cost me $30,000 Canadian all-inclusive.

[@carpenterfamily6198]

NGB you're so cool! I love your backup power solution, but would take it a step further. With an EV and inverter we could come to the rescue of friends and neighbors . . . or supply power at a remote emergency. Or supply power at a community event, which would promote EVs. This cool power solution could be used in so many great ways!

[@cpufreak101]

Carpenter Family reminds me of a fair that I go to every year. Due to the expanse of it, there's a few areas that have to supply their own power from generators, id imagine someone doing a solution like this with a Tesla would see them powered for the entire fair lol

[@vincentbodsworth4497]

There is lots of good stuff here and I haven't yet read it all. But I think you should tell punters that iff they are using an off-grid inverter, be it dirty or sine wave, then the main circit breker to the utility should be off. If it isn't, if the power comes back on it will likely blow your inverter.

[@Bear-cm1vl]

Vincent, an inverter is not designed to be connected to the house wiring at all. If you are going to backfeed the house wiring from an inverter or a generator, you need an external power isolation system which prevents the standby power and the line power from being connected at the same time. Your external power may get a civilian, a line worker or an emergency worker killed without isolation.

[@ivandrone8766]

Leaf doesn't have liquid battery cooling. How hot did main battery get after day and a half? Should leaf owners put a box fan in front of their car?

[@davidcaple5547]

I'm wanting to use a salvaged Tesla Model 3 battery pack (75kW 380v DC made up as 4 x 95v DC modules in series) as a home power store and would welcome any suggestions either how to connect it and/or where to find out. The first is how to charge the battery pack. Can I charge it direct from a 240v AC (UK) supply (overnight cheap rate grid or generator)? My uncertainty is if charging inside the car using the domestic pin plug charging lead is the raw 240v AC sent to the battery pack and the electronics contained in what is known as 'the penthouse' process it internally to charge or does some of the processing take place between the domestic plug (in the domestic socket) and the connection to the battery pack electronics? Life would be so much easier if I can just connect it to a 240v AC supply to charge it. There are lots more questions but charging options seems the most critical! Thanks for reading . :)

[@grumpyhale821]

The modified sign wave is more or less a-stable DC so there isn't any ramping up or ramping down as with proper AC. Computers actually run on DC but yes they need proper AC to convert to smooth DC.

[@tkjtkj9808]

Are there deleterious effects on the 12v battery?

[@craighostland4914]

Most Evs already have an AC plug. Mine is 1500 watts and I just plug what ever I need into it. I’ll run the phev until the battery level drops to the point I start the gas engine.

[@transportevolved]

Most EVs don’t. The newest ones do, if you have a higher end model. But this video is very old, and many older EVs do not.

[@Hulk-mc7bp]

I bought a DEWALT inverter to do that with my Chevy Volt, tools and light bulbs work ok but not the fridge. lights in the fridge turned on but the motor to power the fridge did not turn on. About to get a pure sine inverter.

[@pierrickmiston3702]

Should the car be in Neutral, Park or Drive ? No one seems to cover that

[@kingjamez80]

It's too bad that a device doesn't exist to hook up to the Chademo port and convert the ~400VDC to 110VAC. That would be more efficient, and you'd have a lot more capacity. It really shouldn't be that difficult to build a device like that for a few hundred dollars.

[@jimbo8150]

Jim McPherson transformer

[@Bear-cm1vl]

@@jimbo8150 a transformer does not work on DC voltages without a DC to AC converter. It is possible and may even be practical to find or build an inverter that runs in direct connection to your traction battery, however monitoring of the battery, voltage regulation of the input voltage to the inverter and connection to the traction battery mains would be dangerous and highly difficult for the average user. The CHAdeMO connector is not connected directly to the traction battery mains and, without a major modification to the car's onboard charger, would not allow the CHAdeMO connector to pass power out of the vehicle.

[@Hizenbird]

Or just get the new Nissan Leaf. I believe it has this feature.

[@jcarter1742]

Mitsubishi i-miev has a home Chademo system.

[@christophemschermann9382]

sehr toller bericht - sehr gut

[@transportevolved]

Danke sehr! ^Kate

[@stevenbollinger9776]

Thank you very much for this. I've gotten a lot of compliments over the course of my life for supposedly being smart, because of my "book-larnin'" about things like history and philosophy, but, unfortunately, when people talk about things like volts and amps and current and transformers and Herz and so forth, the hamster on the wheel inside my brain takes a nap. I didn't get any of that. WHOOSH! "This simple method will get you through a blackout." It might get a lot of people through. I'll keep trying to learn. I'm going to have to watch some videos over and over, I think. And maybe read some books about electronics too.

[@lichuang]

Would this approach potentially harm the 12V battery?

[@michaellippmann4474]

No...12VDC battery will be fine as the cars charging system will continue to top up the battery as current is drawn from it. Pretty clever inexpensive way to provide emergency power. You do have to remember to keep your car "on" though.

[@1dir951]

Helpful walkthrough, thank you... :-)

[@davidoldham7520]

Interesting solution. I wonder if you can power a house without all the losses direct from car battery.

[@jalis812-gaming6]

Your desk looks mess, you should clean it and do cable managment. Trust me its worth it

[@transportevolved]

Jalis812 - Gaming those cables were temporary ...

[@Kiltoonie]

A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind ... lol

[@DaveWard-xc7vd]

Rob Kay It only appears messy to those who cant follow the evolution of your thought processes.

[@Kiltoonie]

I cannot follow them myself , so why should you presume to ?

[@martinlacey5985]

Off grid Nikki - well done. Hope the experience doesn't make you a doomsday warrior with nuclear bunker in the garden :)

[@mortimersnead5821]

You know you have some power if you can keep the fridge on. That seems to be the great divide between the big expensive off-grid systems and the cheap minimalist ones. You don't need a lot of power if you leave out everything with pumps and motors. My favorite off-grid channel is called Fouch-o-matic.

[@martinlacey5985]

It look like a difficult choice: Keep the milk cold or avoid breaking your neck in the dark on trailing cables!

[@flywheeldk]

Brilliant ! Hey a Palm Pilot - double brilliant :-)

[@transportevolved]

Peter Jespersen it's used to talk to our RAV4 EV.

[@atanasdimitrov4081]

make sure that you get pure sine inverter

[@alanrobinson2229]

I tried this,my fuse blew immediately on car,now I have no 12 volt socket in use Thanks Transport Evolved!

[@transportevolved]

For most larger inverters (anything designed to draw - or have a start up current demand of greater than 10A) it's advisable to connect directly to the battery rather than through the cigarette lighter. Most cars have a 10A limit on cigarette lighter current draw (which is ~120W peak). I had the same result when I connected a large tyre inflator on our Rav4 EV. Was very annoying! ^Kate

[@TomLoveman]

Question: When does the Nissan Leaf charge the 12v battery? I purchased a Ampeak 1200w pure sine wave inverter and hooked it up to my 2016 Nissan Leaf. It showed the 12v battery at about 45% and it dropped from there going down to 20% in only a matter of minutes. I tested a fan, a 60w light bulb and an old freezer (pulled 365w at peak) and all worked but it seemed to drain the 12v battery very quickly with no signs of it recharging. The main battery pack never dipped from 100%. Am I doing something wrong or just have to high of expectations on what this will power and for how long? Thanks.

[@illya_od_ua]

Leaf has to be turned on. Put your leaf into "ready to drive" = green car with arrows on the dash.

[@michaelakamatsu]

Could one just as safely use a two wire non-grounded extension cord, since the inverter isn't grounded anyway?

[@toptobottom247]

Based on your idea I came up with a thought of purchasing batteries and connect them all together in closet in the basement or a locked storage unit next to the house. Can't I plug in the batteries unit to the house and let the grid charge the batteries to full then use that power back to keep the house going for 8-12 hours on a power outage. Just an idea.

[@cpufreak101]

Anti Petrolhead that's basically a poor mans powerwall, so yes

[@lookoutleo]

1kw thats loads :) you could run so much from that. i want to get a leaf 30

[@randybryan8257]

There have been off grid car to home solutions for years. Try googling "Prius as Generator".

[@fusionenterprise4202]

is there a Leaf to home kit? I have a 2017 sv with 30kwh battery.

[@christianmarquez3143]

I would like to do this too! Great idea. :) How did you find out the DC-DC inverter output power rating? I have a Fiat 500e, '16, and have been searching like crazy. :) I want to make sure that 1000W inverter will be okay for me too. ...thanks for the video! Anyone with a Fiat 500e want to try this too? Let me know what info you come up with?

[@flymac]

Wondering the same here, how may I find out what the 12V battery from my Kia Sportage PHEV can handle while being topped up by the motor battery? Thanks

[@Kangenpower7]

Most electric cars are expected to have around 100 amps of 12 volt loads in them, so my "Guess" is that all cars will be able to handle a 100 amp 12 volt load for a few minutes, and then the battery can recharge when the load is less than 100 amps on the 12 volt battery. Another said they put in a 80 amp fuse, so that they will not overload their DC to DC 12 volt battery charger in their car. Still I would not worry if the load is say 150 amps for about 10 minutes, the battery voltage will "Sag" but will recover after the higher than average load goes away. The 12 volt battery can make up the additional 30 amps or so to power the load for a few minutes. The battery capacity might be 45 - 75 amp hours? I don't know in the case of that car.

[@CubbyTech]

It's really a shame that the main drive battery cannot be directly used. As mentioned, there's a TON of losses in conversion - so taking the 380v DC drive battery, charging a 12v DC battery, then using the inverter to give you 120v AC (about 8 amps) - you're going to lose about 30% energy to heat and conversion inefficiency. 240v AC output at your on-board charger's maximum input is doable with the existing hardware, it's just not implemented anywhere in North America :/ Thanks partly to the silly, limited J1772 port used on North American EVs currently.

[@Bear-cm1vl]

Cubby, it's not an issue with the charging input port... you have an onboard charger between the traction battery mains and the charging port and it is designed to let power into the vehicle, not out. To use the charging ports for power output, the charger would have to have a bypass or be bidirectional and having high voltage from the traction battery mains at the charging port could be a very dangerous issue for the user.

[@Colllinnn]

This woman should be teaching in a school

[@billh3860]

But..but.. I am in school (almost daily and at 71). She is my teacher...

[@stevejordan7275]

3:20 Other cars - like those operated by Americans - will have their battery under the *hood.* (Americans will also struggle with being told to trundle down the road to the W.H.Smith, though you seem to have that bit in hand.) Those inverters that offer it will usually brag about "Pure Sine Wave Output;" just look for it on the packaging or advertising materials. And for future reference, I think the expression at 5:55 is *"with* nary a problem." This is a brilliant solution, and I had almost used it myself, but was doubtful of being able to get 1-3kW out of the 12V "cigarette lighter" connector in my Leaf. Thank you for reminding me of where to look for proper connections that don't require printing (or buying) and then wiring a CHAdeMO connector from scratch. Do you have any technical information about how much current I could actually get off the battery connectors? Can I put a 3kW inverter on that thing and power my refrigerator without melting the copper that connects the battery? Though I have found a hair-raisingly expensive V2L or V2H box at EVSiphon.com that connects to the CHAdeMO port, I didn't really want to throw that much money at it, and would rather have a way to connect my breaker box (downstream of the main breaker) to supply any existing outlet with power (rather than running 1/2" cables all over the house and through an open door or window, thank you very much.) There are many 1500W inverters that should power a refrigerator, or other things, if carefully managed when the refrigerator isn't actually running. Though I do lean toward the 3kW inverter just to prevent blowing it up during peak draw and (the refrigerator's) motor start.

[@tombouie]

Most excellent. TomB

[@austinmackell9286]

Could you also do this with a petrol car?

[@choddo]

Won’t work in my i3. It turns itself off as soon as you open the door. Might be bimmercodable.

[@by9917]

I've not owned a true desktop PC in years, but doesn't everything in a PC run on DC? The power supply of the PC just converts AC to low voltage DC. Usually voltages like -5vdc, +5vdc and +12vdc. I can't think of anything is a PC PS that would be so sensitive to modified sine waves.

[@QALibrary]

very cleaver and well done ~ but what happens is you car not got a 12v battery?

[@AMacProOwner]

QALibrary I can't think of a single car that's made after the 70s that don't have a 12 volt battery.

[@QALibrary]

I have been told some EV cars do not have a separate 12v battery - hence the question

[@cpufreak101]

QALibrary I actually know Tesla is wanting to get rid of their 12V leads in their cars, as Elon Musk personally finds it the worst voltage for cars

[@QALibrary]

if you did not know some top end cars are 24v set up now and normally what happens at the top end goes down the range to the bottom

[@gerardduquette9296]

I have a Ford Focus EV. Any objections to me using a 1500w, or even 3000w, pure sine wave inverter? Purpose would be to handle any inrush, but maintaining 1000w draw (steady state) to allow the car to keep pace with charging the 12v battery.

[@Kangenpower7]

The 3,000 watt pure sine wave inverter will work fine, especially if you keep loads well under 1,000 watts. Problems might be the wire size, required for the inverter. At 3,000 watts, the wire is about 000 to carry the 250+ amps that the inverter is able to convert to 120 volt power. But at 1,000 watt load, it is only #4 wire that can handle 100 amps at 12 volts, or plenty for your potential load. Using a "Anderson Connection" rated around 250 amps would make connection to your car much safer and reliable than using the jumper cables used in this demonstration project. Anderson Connectors are the type used in electric forklifts to connect the 1,000 pound battery to the forklift, and are unplugged when changing the battery to switch with a full battery, or repair the forklift. In my pickup, I cut my #4 jumper cables in 1/2 with 12" section and 18' section. Then installed a anderson connection on each of the jumper cables, so I can use then as one at 20' again, and installed a anderson connector in my pickup under the rear bumper with #4 wire going to my battery. In use, I can pull up in front of a disabled vehicle, plug in the 18' long jumper cable, and attach to the car being jump started. So on the highway, I don't have to turn my truck around to face the other car.

[@mrrightperiod]

You can do this on any gasoline car. You will only need to keep the car running. I did this many time in the past with electric cars.

[@lumberjackdreamer6267]

Don’t connect the negative to the 12v battery. There’s a current sense system. Connect to the chassis. P

[@GPBraaten]

Love it!

[@AndrevandenBergNZ]

Love your videos! Will this method work on the Leaf 2011 (Gen 1) also?

[@illya_od_ua]

Yes

[@_a.z]

The problem with inverters powering sensitive equipment is output impedance.

[@benbrown8258]

wasn't there a follow up video with additional information? I've no luck in finding it...

[@ek9772]

Am I wrong, or is the Leaf the only EV with the ability to do V2G or V2H as part of the car?

[@Kangenpower7]

Right now many vehicle manufactures are working with vehicle to grid charging systems. BlueBird bus company is using their 265 KW bus battery to supply the grid in many areas around the country, especially helpful because most of the summer when grid use is at it's peak, the battery bus is parked all summer long! Ford has a big inverter built into all of it's hybrid trucks and the EV truck too. I am sure that others will copy this idea.

[@johnrogers1423]

I am not sure if it is possible to leave a Tesla turned on without sitting in the driver's seat.

[@bobaldis51]

What about a small UPS to smooth out the power, provide back power whilst out topping up the Leaf?

[@PatrickKormann]

A normal 'offline' UPS won't smooth the power much (it may a little but then you could also just use a regular filter) because it either just passes on the mains it gets or switches to it's own inverter once it doesn't detect a suitable mains. Only you invest into an online UPS you'll always have the power generated by the UPS, no matter if there's mains or not. And that one should normally be quite clean.

[@foxpup]

Most UPS's generally connect input directly to output when there is mains power going in. It only switches to its internal inverter when the mains input isn't live. Consequently, the output is normally about the same as the output most of the time. Now if you connect the 12v LEAF battery to the 12V leads on the UPS inverter, you might get a cleaner sinewave than the cheap hardware store inverters since the UPS's are made for sensitive devices like computers. (The hard part is getting your LEAF up into the office where your computer is. :-) - Nice big fat wires for 12V & lots of current are required) And like Vicky and other wise innovators often say "Your milage may vary" :-) Cool stuff, can keep you computing and the food in your fridge from being wasted. :-)

[@biggiejohn3360]

You would need what is called a "online, double conversion" UPS. These are rare nowadays, as they are very inefficient, and tend to literally cook their batteries, since all of the power is always flowing thru the batteries, while also trying to keep them charged. Lead Acid batteries work best in a charge-discharge cycle, not so well as a current buffer between a charger and inverter.

[@dansanger5340]

It's too bad they don't build 120V inverters into all EVs. It would be great for camping, not just blackouts. And the car's computer could ensure you don't run down your battery so far that you become stranded.

[@stephenbusby3521]

120V is only good in North America. Europe and most elsewhere use 240V

[@transportevolved]

Stephen Busby you can get 240v transformers that do the same thing

[@terciops]

My 2001 Prius NW11 has that - just 300W @ 110 / 60hz - with a mains plug in the passenger footwell wall. Not that useful in a 220V / 50hz world, but WTH. It does however provide plenty of DC-DC 12v support to run a 1000W DC-AC inverter off the 12v battery without issues. The ICE runs intermittently to support the small traction battery (1.8kWh?) and that continues until the dead plant juice runs out. Just make sure the car is outside !!

[@mikewinkker4897]

Buy a more expensive sine wave inverter also when jehu Garcia likes your hackery that’s one hell of a compliment from a master hacker. Wow

[@CharlieBehrens]

I used exactly this technique in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. See facebook.com/notes/charlie-behrens/how-to-use-an-electric-vehicle-for-emergency-power/1571597529564391/. One important difference: connect the negative cable to the chassis, not the battery itself. The Leaf senses current on the negative terminal, so don’t connect directly to it.