Use electric vehicle as a mobile power source

Question

I have a mobile car-wash company and I want my guys to have a fully 220V (2000W-3000W) power outlet available to plug their vacuum cleaners into.

I thought I could buy an electric vehicle to "shoot the both ducks". My guys could drive to the client with their cleaning tools and use that ZERO-EMISSION vehicle as a power source.

I would like to have some of your opinions; do you think it's a good idea to go with an electric car instead of a conventional gas car?

Will I have some difficulties with it, or is it absolutely fine?

Answer 1

This isn't something you do yourself.

The 12V system even at 100% efficiency would require about 250 amperes of current to provide 3000W. At lower efficiency, it's closer to 300 amperes.

I don't think most EVs even have a 3000W DC-DC converter so at 3000W, the 12V battery would deplete in very short amount of time. Lead-acid batteries don't like deep discharge so do that few times and you need a new 12V battery. In some cars like Tesla, every load is accounted for and if you create a load the computer doesn't know about, it will fail to work.

Even 100 mm² copper wires can't do 300 amperes.

To do this, you need an inverter that's tapped into the high-voltage battery directly. You in practice can't do this yourself, you need a car where the inverter is already present. Some cars like Hyundai Ioniq 5 already have such an inverter. Most don't.

I think it's braindead design to create a mobile >70 kWh battery pack and not add an inverter to provide 230V 3600W via a standard outlet.

Only buy cars that have the all-important 230V 3600W inverter like Hyundai Ioniq 5. Don't buy cars that lack that important feature.

Answer 2

This sort of vehicle to load capability is now something you can purchase with your electric vehicle. I’ve seen several providers at a variety of capabilities including the Ford Lightning at the high end (a whole house solution) down to Hyundai Ioniq 5 (more like “what can you fit on a single power strip). At this point, I would recommend you shop for a vehicle that will give you this capability natively rather than trying to retrofit it.

I also expect that this capability will only mature. It’s so much more useful to use the electrons that you brought with you than to try to run loads off of a portable generator!

Answer 3

If this is a DIY project, you'd almost certainly have to run the inverter off of the 12V battery and the 12V batteries on most EVs aren't sized to handle much of a load -- the traction motor battery is going to have an uncomfortably high voltage, it's likely to be well above the input voltage of most off-the-shelf inverters.

However, there are starting to be cars on the market that have V2L (vehicle to load) capabilities. The (currently) unobtainable Ford F150 Lightning comes to mind. Those would be worth investigating.

A vehicle with V2H (vehicle to home) capability, such as the Nissan Leaf, might also be an option.

Answer 4

Except from the cost of the electric vehicle you choose, you should also note that if you use the vehicle to run 220v machines multiple times in a day there is a high chance the ev's battery will discharge quicker than usual.