Ford said this week that buyers of its forthcoming Fathom pickup, a sub-$30,000 electric truck due next year, will get more than a vehicle: every Fathom will double as a backup battery for the owner's home from the moment it leaves the factory.
Vehicle-to-home technology is not new — Ford built a version of it for the now-discontinued F-150 Lightning — but earlier systems relied on an inverter built into a separate wallbox to convert the truck's DC power into usable AC current. The Fathom instead builds that inverter directly into the vehicle, letting any owner tap the truck as a power source without buying additional hardware.
Detroit answers China's cheap EVs
The Fathom is widely read as Ford's response to a wave of inexpensive Chinese electric vehicles that have undercut Western automakers on price. It joins a second low-cost electric truck arriving around the same time, the Blank Slate, a bare-bones two-door from a new startup built around features online shoppers say they want: no onboard modem, no touchscreen, no infotainment system.
The Fathom costs roughly $5,000 more than the Slate, but that premium buys an extra pair of doors, a conventional infotainment system with Apple CarPlay, power windows, and access to Ford's nationwide dealer network for service — a meaningful consideration, given how many recalls the company issues in an average year.
Ford has not yet detailed the Fathom's battery capacity, range, or exact release date beyond "next year," and has not said how much backup power a full charge could supply to a typical home. The vehicle-to-home feature is likely to appeal most to buyers in regions prone to extended power outages, a market segment automakers have increasingly targeted since the Lightning's debut.