The Fathom’s built-in inverter can keep the lights on in your home during an outage — not bad for under $30,000.

Ford’s upcoming Fathom electric truck — expected to arrive early next year — is reasonably priced at $28,350, especially given that the average transaction price for a new EV is closer to $55,000. But the added bonus is a feature that could save you money, and literally save your bacon.

The automaker’s “clean sheet” reboot of its EV ambitions will be offered with bidirectional charging, which allows the truck to send power from its battery back to the house it’s plugged into. That could keep the lights on and the fridge running during an extended power outage.

Historically, true bidirectional power has been a premium feature on more expensive electric cars and has required additional, costly home hardware. Ford says it’s bringing costs down by building the tech into what will be its cheapest EV yet and making it more accessible to a wider range of homeowners.

So far, Ford hasn’t revealed much of the electric truck beyond the name and camouflaged prototypes.

The upcoming Fathom will be based on what Ford calls its Universal EV Platform, designed with the aid of its 2023 acquisition, startup Auto Motive Power, with bidirectional power on the plate from the start.

The hardware required to invert the battery’s DC energy to an estimated 10 kW of AC home power will be built into the truck, so it won’t require a separate wall-mounted inverter box.

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