No Vehicle to Load or Outlets in Bed/Frunk

[SLATEchad]

Just heard back on an inquiry about vehicle to load and outlets in the Slate, and I’m a little bummed about the response. I asked if it would have V2L capability and if there would be outlets in the bed or frunk of the vehicle and the vague response was that there would be neither in the initial production model. I understand the goal is simple and affordable, but it would really increase its functionality as a work truck if it had some outlets in the bed for running power tools. Not a deal breaker for me, but hopefully it’s something that changes. The agent said they’ve heard this request from a lot of people.

 

[The Weatherman]

Yeah, that’s too bad. It kinda assumed to be a standard feature on an electric vehicle. Both my Lightning and my EV6 have some level of V2L support.

But hey, I’m still on the Slate Team and hope they can meet their goals and our expectations.

GO SLATE!!

 

[sodamo]

Confused how you do V2L, as confirmed in separate thread without at least 1 outlet?

reread SA response, Option of V2L
My bad

 

[Benjamin Nead]

Ironically, the 12 year old i-MiEV I drive (as do all Nissan Leafs) has V2x capability, because the DC CHAdeMO specifications has that written into to the standard. Trouble is, you'll never find a turn-key aftermarket interface generally available in North America to take advantage of that. You could probably find something from a Chinese vendor that would work. But good luck if you need tech support or a warranty issue. Smaller air cooled batteries in those cars as well.

One of reasons I never liked CCS is that V2x is NOT a given with that standard. It's up to each vehicle manufacturer to implement it, and most don't or haven't. Likewise, Tesla has never offered it. Elon said something vague many years ago (funny, he still does a lot of that) about V2x being 'bad" for the vehicle's battery. Yet early versions - and maybe even the current iteration - of the Powerwall used the exact same NMC cell chemistry.

That said, the J3400/NACS plug we'll see on the Slate is, apparently, going to be bidirectional ready rather soon. This is what Google AI told me the other day (I posted a longer version of this the other day on another thread here) . . .

• implementing bidirectional charging with J3400 requires vehicle firmware support and an inverter/transfer switch in the home to convert the EV's DC voltage to the grid-compatible AC voltage.
• As of April 2024, the only consumer vehicle with a CCS port for bidirectional charging is the Ford F-150 Lightning.
• Ford is motivated to overcome this limitation with J3400.
• The SAE J3400/2 standard, which was published in June 2025, specifically addresses the physical architecture of EV connectors for bidirectional power transfer.

So, the entire North American auto industry is moving on this, but it's probably behind schedule for Slate to say that it will be available by the time they launch. Educated guess here as well that, once J3400 V2x is available, Slate could add it to any of their Trucks already sold via a firmware update.

Fingers crossed!

 

[SLATEchad]

Confused how you do V2L, as confirmed in separate thread without at least 1 outlet?

reread SA response, Option of V2L
My bad

According to the rep that responded to me from Slate, I wonder if that statement in the other thread isn’t actually confirmed. Of course there’s been some incidences of Slate reps giving the wrong information, so I’d love it if the response I got was inaccurate.

Just re-read your response. If it’s an added option that would be very worth it. Seems like a feature that would need to be factory installed.

 

[Benjamin Nead]

If you want to simply be able to run higher current draw electrical appliances (power tools, induction cooking devices, etc.) when you're out and about with your Slate, you might want to consider the purchase of a portable power station (I call them solar generators, or "solgens," because virtually all of them now have fairly decent built-in MPPT solar charge controllers built in these days.) There are several well known brands to choose from these days: Ecoflow, Bluetti, Jackery and Pecron come to mind.

Pictured below is the larger modular Bluetti system I have: an AC200L "head" unit that can mate to 2 of the B210 expansion batteries, also shown . . .

6.3kWh is what this combo is rated for. Since it's all modular, each part is a stand-alone station in the 2kWh range, although the expansion batteries are DC-only on their outputs. These things get bigger (whole house backup size and, most recently, 240V capable,) as well as smaller.

I also have a couple of the EB3A units, which mate perfectly to a single 100W solar panel and has a 600W inverter, as well as a host of DC outputs (cat not included) . . .

 

[Liontracks]

I hear good things about Jackery too, though I don't know if that particular brand would fit the use case you're looking for. Never used them before myself, and don't know how they compare to other brands though.

 

[SLATEchad]

If you want to simply be able to run higher current draw electrical appliances (power tools, induction cooking devices, etc.) when you're out and about with your Slate, you might want to consider the purchase of a portable power station (I call them solar generators, or "solgens," because virtually all of them now have fairly decent built-in MPPT solar charge controllers built in these days.) There are several well known brands to choose from these days: Ecoflow, Bluetti, Jackery and Pecron come to mind.

Pictured below is the larger modular Bluetti system I have: an AC200L "head" unit that can mate to 2 of the B210 expansion batteries, also shown . . .

6.3kWh is what this combo is rated for. Since it's all modular, each part is a stand-alone station in the 2kWh range, although the expansion batteries are DC-only on their outputs. These things get bigger (whole house backup size and, most recently, 240V capable,) as well as smaller.

I also have a couple of the EB3A units, which mate perfectly to a single 100W solar panel and has a 600W inverter, as well as a host of DC outputs (cat not included) . . .

Yes, those are definitely good options and would be a little more flexible than plugging into the truck itself at times. Still hope it maybe has outlets as an added option

 

[Benjamin Nead]

I hear good things about Jackery too, though I don't know if that particular brand would fit the use case you're looking for. Never used them before myself, and don't know how they compare to other brands though.

I'd say any of the ones I mentioned (and several that I didn't) are a good deal. It's a very quickly evolving market that really didn't exist 5 or 6 years ago. There were people building their own from raw components, and many still prefer to do it that way (see Will Prowse's DIY Solar Power Forum,) but it seems that the market for the premanufactured ones really came together just as the pandemic was lifting, late 2021 to mid 2022.

I came very close to building my own "solgen' and still have an interesting collection of small stand-alone inverters, MPPT controllers and some specialty tools from the planning and parts purchasing stage. But by early 2023, I suddenly found myself looking at nicely packaged products with seriously good warranties and even UL certifications looking me in the face for even less money than it would have cost me to finish constructing my own "Frankenstein." No regrets, though. The DIY process gained me some insights on how the big boys are making them now.

I probably should have put Anker (known mostly for their computer cables and pocket-sized power banks,) DJI (the R/C drone manufacturer,) and ICECO (portable fridges) on that list. They all make their own solgens now. The only rub on Jackey was that they were among the last to embrace LFP cells, after their bigest competitors, Ecoflow and Bluetti, were fully onboard with those.

Just like cars, every brand of solgen has both their own ardent supporters and even a few vocal detractors. Your mileage may vary. Check product reviews on YouTube (Hobotech, Jasoniod, Reeway and Waveform Science are good places to start) and you'll get to know who does and makes what. Some manfacturers stress certain features at certain price points. Bluetti was the brand I happened to jump in on, but they certainly aren't the only good one out there.

 

[Benjamin Nead]

Yes, those are definitely good options and would be a little more flexible than plugging into the truck itself at times. Still hope it maybe has outlets as an added option

Oh yeah, me too! The hardest part, from what I understand, is being able to integrate a physically large inverter into the tight spaces of a vehicle that can handle the rather massive DC voltage input (400V or so) of an EV traction battery and take it down to standard household voltage (120V AC.) The actual AC NEMA 5-15 receptical has to be handled with care, with rubber cap weather proofing, etc., that you wouldn't neccesarily be needing on your living room wall. But, yeah, it's all possible. Why it didn't become commonplace years ago is something that continues to mystify me.

The difference between this and V2x is that the high voltage DC of the car's traction battery is coming out of the charging connector itself (bidirectional flow) and streaming into a box hanging on the wall of a garage or someplace similar. That big wall box does what the DC-to-AC inverter in the car would have been doing (and more, since it's moving electricty in both directions) and this involves design coordination between auto manufacturers and household electrical protocol.

The Japanese had this all figured out in around 2009, when the CHAdeMO DC standard was established. Included in the standard was V2x capability. A couple years later, Nissan and Mitsubishi were selling CHAdeMO-equipped EVs in the US and, suddenly, the time-honored cry of "not invented here" was being shouted by a consortium of US and European OEMs. They came up with something called Combined Charging Standard, or CCS in or around 2013-14. Two, actually: one for the US (CCS-1) and one for Europe (CCS-2.) Neither one, as far as I know, has bidirectional protocol built into the specification. But the fight was on, at least in the US, to denigrate CHAdeMO and make sure it wouldn't become the standard outside of Asia.

Tesla, by the way, was a tiny up-and-coming company in the early 20-teens, when all this stuff was happening. They had already developed a plug design for their early roadster that they abandonded when they brought out the Model S in 2012 along with their then-new "compelling" (that's Elon speak) connector. Fast forward to mid 2024 and the latest electronic iteration of the Tesla connector, J3400 or NACS, became what every manufacturer in the US is now in the process of adopting. It's a physically smaller size than what came before it (CHAdeMO and CCS plugs are rather massive) and that's one important thing that makes it desirable from a consumer and marketing standpoint. Electrically, J3400 is actually very similar to CCS: no built-in bidirectional standard as of yet.

I guess I'm a historian of sorts regarding all this stuff. I'm a retired radio announcer and, because I was the one guy working at the Tucson NPR station at the time who was interested in all this then-new EV stuff, I was able to put together a few radio news features on EV charging standards when all the "reaL" reporters were still learning . . .

https://www.azpm.org/s/8913-electric-cars/

It also put me in a position to talk with a couple of interesting Europeans at that time who were flying large solar powered airplanes across the US and, eventually, around the world . . .

https://www.azpm.org/s/14733-solar-impulse/

 

[SLATEchad]

Oh yeah, me too! The hardest part, from what I understand, is being able to integrate a physically large inverter into the tight spaces of a vehicle that can handle the rather massive DC voltage input (400V or so) of an EV traction battery and take it down to standard household voltage (120V AC.) The actual AC NEMA 5-15 receptical has to be handled with care, with rubber cap weather proofing, etc., that you wouldn't neccesarily be needing on your living room wall. But, yeah, it's all possible. Why it didn't become commonplace years ago is something that continues to mystify me.

The difference between this and V2x is that the high voltage DC of the car's traction battery is coming out of the charging connector itself (bidirectional flow) and streaming into a box hanging on the wall of a garage or someplace similar. That big wall box does what the DC-to-AC inverter in the car would have been doing (and more, since it's moving electricty in both directions) and this involves design coordination between auto manufacturers and household electrical protocol.

The Japanese had this all figured out in around 2009, when the CHAdeMO DC standard was established. Included in the standard was V2x capability. A couple years later, Nissan and Mitsubishi were selling CHAdeMO-equipped EVs in the US and, suddenly, the time-honored cry of "not invented here" was being shouted by a consortium of US and European OEMs. They came up with something called Combined Charging Standard, or CCS in or around 2013-14. Two, actually: one for the US (CCS-1) and one for Europe (CCS-2.) Neither one, as far as I know, has bidirectional protocol built into the specification. But the fight was on, at least in the US, to denigrate CHAdeMO and make sure it wouldn't become the standard outside of Asia.

Tesla, by the way, was a tiny up-and-coming company in the early 20-teens, when all this stuff was happening. They had already developed a plug design for their early roadster that they abandonded when they brought out the Model S in 2012 along with their then-new "compelling" (that's Elon speak) connector. Fast forward to mid 2024 and the latest electronic iteration of the Tesla connector, J3400 or NACS, became what every manufacturer in the US is now in the process of adopting. It's a physically smaller size than what came before it (CHAdeMO and CCS plugs are rather massive) and that's one important thing that makes it desirable from a consumer and marketing standpoint. Electrically, J3400 is actually very similar to CCS: no built-in bidirectional standard as of yet.

I guess I'm a historian of sorts regarding all this stuff. I'm a retired radio announcer and, because I was the one guy working at the Tucson NPR station at the time who was interested in all this then-new EV stuff, I was able to put together a few radio news features on EV charging standards when all the "reaL" reporters were still learning . . .

https://www.azpm.org/s/8913-electric-cars/

It also put me in a position to talk with a couple of interesting Europeans at that time who were flying large solar powered airplanes across the US and, eventually, around the world . . .

https://www.azpm.org/s/14733-solar-impulse/

Nice! You clearly know your stuff, and I appreciate the history lesson!