Tornadoes knocked out my home power for days, but my Rivian became a backup energy savior
The title says it all. Heavy thunderstorms and tornadoes ripped through the Midwest Thursday evening, leaving thousands of homes without power or internet. Luckily, my home dodged severe damage, but I was without power and internet for days. Luckily, I had my Rivian R1S in the garage that I used as a backup energy source, which I documented below (because I honestly had nothing else to do without power and internet).
You may or may not (probably not) have noticed that I was MIA from the Electrek homepage last Friday. That’s because the night before, around 10 PM, my neighborhood was hit with one of the nastiest storms I’ve seen in quite some time. By about 10:30 PM, my home’s power and internet were knocked out, and I’d come to find I wouldn’t be back online on the grid or the web until Sunday.
Multiple tornadoes, mangling trees, boats, and power lines, touched down nearby. In that sense, I was pretty lucky as all I had were some dead fallen branches, a couple of backyard items tipped over, and a pool cover with another pool’s worth of water sitting atop it.
Still, I was without power or internet, and my home used a well pump, so there were no showers or toilets either. Fun!
I’m a millennial who grew up before and after widespread ISPs and smartphones, so I can deal with the lack of internet and the fact that we decided not to purchase a backup generator (although hearing all the neighbors’ humming with lights aglow did strike a nerve of envy each night). My genuine concern, however, was the fridges and freezers.
We had two fridges full of food, and one freezer had just been stocked with an entire box of Farmer’s Dog for our pooch Lily. If you’ve ever ordered Farmer’s Dog, you know that it is EXPENSIVE. So, letting it all thaw out and spoil was not an option. We needed backup power fast, so I turned to my Rivian R1S.
It delivered to the fullest.
My Rivian gave me days of seamless backup power
I want to start by saying I’ve only had my Rivian for a few months, so I don’t have a holistic home energy management system in place. Therefore, I couldn’t use the R1S as backup power for my entire home, but that was fine, to be honest.
The Rivian provided all the necessary backup power I needed for vital appliances and electronics, with plenty of additional energy leftover when the lights inevitably came back on.
As you can see from the diagram above, the Rivian R1S offers a slew of power ports to fit various needs, whether it’s while driving, out in the wild, or providing backup power to your home. To power my garage fridge (with the dog food in the freezer), I simply ran an extension cord from the truck’s rear 120V plug through the garage and plugged in the fridge directly.
It was as simple as that. It was music to my ears when the fridge lit up inside and began to hum. Lily’s food was still frozen solid, and my beers were still cold to the touch. What a win. I also moved several essential food items and medications from the kitchen into the garage to prevent them from spoiling.
As you can see from the image above, I also set my Rivian on a timer for backup energy, allowing at least two days of full use to ensure the fridge stayed on. At the same time, I used the backup power stored in my Rivian to charge devices like my phone, watch, and smaller portable battery packs.
I could have plugged in a lot more, and will keep that in mind if and when there’s another blackout, but the Rivian provided more than enough backup energy for what I needed. When it was all said and done, I only drained about 25 miles of range from the battery after powering my fridge and other devices for days.
Not only was I impressed by how much stored energy I had at my disposal, but it was also incredible how easily I could access the BEV’s two 120V plugs and abundant USB-C ports.
Thank you, Rivian, for helping me keep Lily’s food frozen. You don’t want to see her without her Farmer’s Dog. It’s ugly.
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![Day 1 of the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix 2025 [Gallery]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/07/54629423281_6315c46dff_k.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Today was the official start of racing at the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix 2025! There was a tremendous energy (and heat) on the ground at NCM Motorsports Park as nearly a dozen teams took to the track. Currently, as of writing, Stanford is ranked #1 in the SOV (Single-Occupant Vehicle) class with 68 registered laps. However, the fastest lap so far belongs to UC Berkeley, which clocked a 4:45 on the 3.15-mile track. That’s an average speed of just under 40 mph on nothing but solar energy. Not bad!
In the MOV (Multi-Occupant Vehicle) class, Polytechnique Montréal is narrowly ahead of Appalachian State by just 4 laps. At last year’s formula sun race, Polytechnique Montréal took first place overall in this class, and the team hopes to repeat that success. It’s still too early for prediction though, and anything can happen between now and the final day of racing on Saturday.
Congrats to the teams that made it on track today. We look forward to seeing even more out there tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some shots from today via the event’s wonderful photographer Cora Kennedy.
Stay tuned for more!
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The numbers are in and they are all bad for Tesla fans – the company sold just 5,000 Cybertruck models in Q4 of 2025, and built some 30% more “other” vehicles than it delivered. It just gets worse and worse, on today’s tension-building episode of Quick Charge!
We’ve also got day 1 coverage of the 2025 Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix, reports that the Tesla Optimus program is in chaos after its chief engineer jumps ship, and a look ahead at the fresh new Hyundai IONIQ 2 set to bow early next year, thanks to some battery specs from the Kia EV2.
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Tesla has launched its new Oasis Supercharger, the long-promised EV charging station of the future, with a solar farm and off-grid batteries.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to the Supercharger stations, and CEO Elon Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
All of these pieces have been in place for years, and Tesla has now discontinued the Powerpack in favor of the Megapack. The Supercharger network is also transitioning to V4 stations.
Yet, solar and battery deployment haven’t accelerated much in the decade since Musk made that comment, but it is finally happening.
Last year, Tesla announced a new project called ‘Oasis’, which consists of a new model Supercharger station with a solar farm and battery storage enabling off-grid operations in Lost Hills, California.
Tesla has now unveiled the project and turned on most of the Supercharger stalls:
The project consists of 168 chargers, with half of them currently operational, making it one of the largest Supercharger stations in the world. However, that’s not even the most notable aspect of it.
The station is equipped with 11 MW of ground-mounted solar panels and canopies, spanning 30 acres of land, and 10 Tesla Megapacks with a total energy storage capacity of 39 MWh.
It can be operated off-grid, which is the case right now, according to Tesla.
With off-grid operations, Tesla was about to bring 84 stalls online just in time for the Fourth of July travel weekend. The rest of the stalls and a lounge are going to open later this year.
Electrek’s Take
This is awesome. A bit late, but awesome. This is what charging stations should be like: fully powered by renewable energy.
Unfortunately, it will be much harder to open those stations in the future due to legislation that Trump and the Republican Party have just passed, which removes incentives for solar and energy storage, adds taxes on them, and removes incentives to build batteries – all things that have helped Tesla considerably over the last few years.
The US is likely going to have a few tough years for EV adoption and renewable energy deployment.
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