Ford Motor launches bi-directional home charging station for F-150 Lightning

Ford Motor has launched its new Ford Charge Station Pro, a bi-directional home charging station that is compatible with the upcoming F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. The charging station offers backup power and can also be used as a generator, like a Tesla Powerwall.

When Ford unveiled the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck, it highlighted its bi-directional charging feature: Ford intelligent Backup Power. It means that the truck can send power back to power a home, another vehicle, or virtually anything it can plug into. While this feature is available in more and more electric vehicles lately, including in the Hyundai Ioniq 5, it is new for an electric pickup truck.

Thanks to a bigger battery pack, the electric truck can provide backup power in case of an outage, and therefore, can potentially replace a home generator or home battery pack. However, in order to use the capacity at home, Ford-F150 Lightning owners will need a bi-directional charging station into which they can plug their electric pickup.

The Ford charging station is priced at $1,310 but the installation will add significant additional cost to make it work properly. However, the Ford Charge Station Pro is not a regular home charger. It is rated at 80 amp, which is twice the capacity of an average charger and it also enables Ford’s Intelligent Backup Power bi-directional charging capacity.

With 80 amps of max current, the charging station is claimed to add 30 miles of range per hour to the F-150 Lightning Extended Range and it is limited to 19 miles per hour for F-150 Standard Range. Further, the system can provide up to 9.6 kW to your home when combined with Ford’s Home Integration System during the installation.