Ford just gave its cheapest truck the most useful feature you will never see. On Tuesday, the company said the Ford Fathom, the $28,350 electric pickup arriving in 2027, will send more than 10 kW of AC power into a house without the wall-mounted inverter that made home backup so expensive on the F-150 Lightning. The inverter is now inside the truck.
That sounds like a wiring footnote. It is actually the difference between home backup as a $5,000 add-on and home backup at roughly the price of a decent generator. Here is what Ford announced, how it works, what it should cost, and what we are still waiting to learn.
⚡ Reading this in your inbox? The diagrams and comparison are built for the web. See the full visual version on Electric Future.
What Ford announced
The news came in a post from Dave McCreadie, Ford’s director of grid and energy services. Ford says the Fathom will be the first EV from a US automaker with a sticker price under $30,000 that can power a home without a separate wall-mounted inverter, with a projected output of more than 10 kW.
The trick is where the inverter lives. Ford built it into the Fathom’s E-box, one of the five main modules the truck is assembled from. The hardware traces back to Auto Motive Power, a power electronics company Ford bought in 2023, and was redesigned for the Universal EV Platform that the Fathom launches.
Because the truck does the conversion, the boxes on your garage wall get simpler and cheaper. There are two:
- Ford Home Power Station. The bidirectional charger. It handles what Ford calls Home Power Management: charging when electricity is cheap and running the house from the truck when rates are high. Ford expects it to cost about half as much as its first-generation bidirectional charger.
- Ford Home Backup Power Panel. Paired with the station, it keeps the lights on during an outage. Ford says it will cost at least 60% less than its first-generation home backup hardware.
Ford also says the system is designed to meet the UL 1741 and IEEE 1547 standards that utilities use for anything connected to the grid, and that it uses the SAE J3068 charging standard, which Ford says helps bring the charger’s cost down.
DC vs AC: why the inverter’s address matters
Every EV battery stores direct current. Your house runs on alternating current. Something has to convert one to the other, and that converter, the inverter, is the expensive part of home backup. Put it on the wall and every owner buys one. Put it in the truck and it is built once, at factory scale.
Lightning vs Fathom
The F-150 Lightning made home backup famous, and it worked well. It was also pricey: the Charge Station Pro and the Home Integration System came to $5,205 in hardware alone, and Fortune reports that Sunrun quotes for a full installation landed around $8,900 to $9,400. Here is how the two systems line up.
What can 10 kW actually run?
A Ford spokesperson told Fortune the Fathom can keep a refrigerator, lights, Wi-Fi, a TV and a microwave or coffee maker going during an outage. As a rule of thumb, 10 kW covers the essentials of most homes comfortably. Where you would hit the ceiling is several big electric loads at once, like central air, an electric oven and a dryer all running together.
How long it can keep going is the number everyone wants, and Ford has not given it yet. Runtime depends on battery size, and Ford has not announced the Fathom’s battery size or range either. Ford says runtime details will come closer to launch.
The quiet part: your utility
Sending power from a truck into a house means the house can, in theory, send power back toward the grid. That makes utilities nervous, and every one of them has its own rules for connecting equipment. Ford counts more than 3,000 utilities across the US and Canada.
So in July, Ford formed a working group with five of them: American Electric Power, BC Hydro, Consumers Energy, Exelon and Pacific Gas and Electric. The goal is interconnection rules that treat a bidirectional EV sensibly, so owners can use the truck as backup and join programs like virtual power plants, which pay owners to lend stored energy to the grid when demand peaks. Canary Media notes that only California and Maryland have rules for this kind of AC bidirectional charging outside of pilot programs today, and that Ford is working with regulators in Michigan and Colorado.
McCreadie told Canary Media that this is not going to be Ford’s last bidirectional EV. We believe him. Once the inverter is part of the platform, every truck and SUV built on it can carry the same trick.
What we are still verifying
- Runtime. How many hours or days a full Fathom can power a typical home. Ford says it will share this closer to launch.
- Battery size and range. Not announced, and the EPA estimate is not available yet. Ford has said the $28,350 base truck gets a smaller battery, with a larger pack aimed at about 300 miles as an option.
- Real hardware prices. Ford published percentages, not dollar figures, and installation is extra. The ~$655 and ~$2,100 numbers are estimates from Fortune and TechCrunch.
- On-sale timing and installers. Ford has not said when the Home Power Station and Backup Power Panel go on sale or who will install them.
- Charge port. Reports say the Fathom has a native NACS port, the Tesla-style plug, and a prototype has been spotted at a Supercharger. Ford’s own Fathom page does not list it yet.
Ford Fathom home power: quick answers
Can the Ford Fathom power a house?
Yes. Ford says the Fathom will supply a projected 10 kW or more of AC power to a home, using a Ford Home Power Station and, for outages, a Ford Home Backup Power Panel.
Does the Fathom need a separate inverter for home backup?
No. The inverter is built into the truck’s E-box, so there is no wall-mounted inverter like the one in the F-150 Lightning’s Home Integration System.
How much will Fathom home backup cost?
Ford has not published prices. It says the Home Power Station will cost about half as much as its first-generation charger, and the backup hardware at least 60% less than before. Applied to the old prices, that works out to roughly $655 for the station and about $2,100 for a full backup setup, before installation.
When can I buy a Ford Fathom?
Ford plans to open preorders in early 2027, with deliveries later that year. You can join Ford’s preorder invite list now. The truck starts at $28,350 plus a $1,595 destination fee.
Will the F-150 Lightning get the cheaper system?
Ford has not said so. The Lightning converts power in a separate wall-mounted inverter, and Ford stopped building it in December 2025, according to Fortune.
⚡ Want the runtime and range the day Ford publishes them? We will add the Fathom to the Range Chart and send one short email when the numbers land. Always free. Subscribe to Electric Future.
More on this truck: our first look at the Ford Fathom, and where it sits among every upcoming electric car.
Ford, “Bidirectional EVs at a New Scale: Working With Utilities to Get Interconnection Ready” (October 27, 2026) and the Ford Fathom page; reporting by Fortune, TechCrunch, Canary Media, Electrek and Ford Authority. F-150 Lightning pricing from Ford via Charged EVs and InsideEVs. Hardware prices for the Fathom system are estimates derived from Ford’s percentages. Photos and illustrations courtesy of Ford, except the unofficial render, which is by TopElectricSUV.
Electric Future
