Well we know it was near outside, otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible to just leave an extension cord to charge it from the Rivian without having to bother anyone inside…
Ah, I understood it that the power station was INSIDE and they setup an EXTENSION cord to run outside (I think under the garage door?) so this considerate gent could come easily and plug the cord into the rivian port, to charge it up at any time.
Yes? Exactly? Do you think solar panels can’t also use a longer cord? Plus they have the advantage of not needing to be placed somewhere that’s accessible to a vehicle, in case the garage door isn’t south facing.
You are clearly a true friend. Also, it's great to know this is an option living out in rural america.On July 4th, we had a storm with high winds (I heard 123 mph in areas) that either broke or pushed over thousands of trees in the Lancaster PA area - with up to 30,000 homes without power. While we didn't lose power once (all underground power lines and no trees older than 25 years), friends of ours just 6 miles away had multiple trees down and no power.
I grabbed my Bluetti AC180 and a bunch of extension cords and headed over to their house. They were mostly concerned with keeping their refrigerator/freezer running. It turns out the AC180 would power it for about 8 hours before being completely drained. When they learned it would be at least 3-4 days before they had power back, I added an extension cord to run to their gas hot water heater. After I added my Starlink to the mix, the AC180 would power everything for about 6 hours. I just took the Rivian over 3 times a day and in an hour the AC180 was back to 100% and would power everything for the next 6 hours or so. It got them through the 4 days until their power was restored. As the Rivian is our only car, I couldn't just leave it there, although that would have saved a bunch of trips. I just ran the plug end of an extension cord out under their garage door so I didn't have to disturb them when I came by to charge the AC180. It worked!
They can of course but the lose even MORE efficiency as you extend the charging from the solar source. At least for the narrow gauge cables that are usually used with “portable” solar panels . Even. 20-30 ft is going to lose more of the already relatively inefficient solar conversion.
Sure, there are scenarios in which solar panels are of limited effectiveness, but even then they’re still adding charge to the system, and extending the amount of time you can go between recharging the power station from the Rivian or a generator or whatever.
I usually use the Bluetti when camping or tailgating and I always have the Rivian to recharge it so I never bothered to get any solar. I definitely did think about it though in the hour that I was sitting there charging - we had bright sun during the day pretty much every day. Even one 200W panel probably would have changed the "reload" dynamic to every 8-10 hours rather than 6-8.
