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points by FabCH 1 day ago | 0 comments

The whole point of prepping is to prepare for the unlikely events though.

If you can choose between a truck that can’t power your house and a truck that can, prepper mentality is to choose the one that can.

[–] arrowleaf 1 day ago

With unlimited money, sure, but your typical prepper would be able to fund a decent portable gas generator and jerry cans (or even a natural gas line) without a need for financing.

[–] golem14 1 day ago

Never understood that line of reasoning. In a really bad situation, you just won't have any fuel. And solar is the way to go.

[–] jklowden 1 day ago

Why does the prepper assume there will be electricity to charge his car?

[–] lukan 1 day ago

In case of living somewhere sunny, because he has solar installed?

[–] wyre 1 day ago

If you are using solar why need the cybertruck at all?

[–] forgotaccount3 1 day ago

Because when you produce more energy than you need, you need to store it somewhere and if the cost is roughly equivalent for that place to be mobile vs a static construction, choosing the mobile one is superior.

[–] kube-system 1 day ago

Standard grid-tie systems shut themselves off during a grid outage due to anti-islanding safety requirements.

If you want your solar panels to be operational during an outage, the typical install for this is a system that already includes batteries.

There are specialized options that exist with islanding features, but if you didn't install your solar system specifically for this you probably don't have it.

[–] wyre 1 day ago

But the cost isn't equivalent at all???

Is this thread being astroturfed? This defence for the Cybertruck ITT is one of the least rational threads I've seen on HN in the past few years and if the CT was actually valuable tech it wouldn't be one of the worst selling vehicles of all time.

[–] lukan 1 day ago

Are you maybe a bit overreacting? The question of emergency power is a rational one and no one here said they thinj a cybertruck is awesome because of it. Just that this is a selling point.

[–] wyre 1 day ago

I am certainly overreacting. I was just dumbfounded by the question I was responding too. If the concern is emergency power there are so many better alternatives than a cybertruck. If the concern is storing an abundance of solar power there are much better alternatives than a cybertruck. I don't want to come onto HN and be marketed products; I come to HN for tech news and to see cool software that people build, not to be marketed a cybertruck.

[–] MentalM 1 day ago

> The question of emergency power is a rational one

And the additional value of Cybertruck in this question is about $1000 - $1500. $1k of additional value for $60k purchase is still a selling point, but marginally small selling point.

[–] CTDOCodebases 1 day ago

There are a whole bunch of "Prepping" scenarios to prepare for.

[–] alterom 1 day ago

Because the "prepper" never had to deal with an actual disaster.

You can stockpile diesel for a generator (unlike electrons). That's what actual prepping looks like.

Take it from a Ukrainian.

[–] gopher_space 1 day ago

There was a great write up by a Bosnian survivor about prepping vs reality and the top concerns were fuel, cooking oil, and paper goods. Water didn’t even make the list.

[–] SJC_Hacker 19 hours ago

Sure, in Bosnia where it rains regularly. In drier climates, different story.

[–] gopher_space 12 hours ago

IIRC her point was that there's non-potable water you don't normally consider that can be made potable.

[–] labcomputer 1 day ago

Diesel can't be stored forever. Maybe a few years with stabilizer. So you need to remember to rotate it out (and have some use for the fuel you're rotating out).

Much easier to just buy some solar panels to recharge the electric truck.

[–] autoexec 1 day ago

A prepper will already be rotating out food and water anyway. Solar is still a good idea, but so is having fuel powered generators. Might not be too much sunshine in situations like a nuclear winter or geoengineering gone wrong.

[–] alterom 1 day ago

>Diesel can't be stored forever. Maybe a few years with stabilizer. So you need to remember to rotate it out (and have some use for the fuel you're rotating out). Much easier to just buy some solar panels to recharge the electric truck.

Much easier to use diesel in your diesel-powered vehicle.

And then you have much, much energy in your stockpile.

[–] wang_li 1 day ago

Diesel just lengthens the storage time. You still have to go somewhere to get it when your onsite tank runs dry. For the electric side you could also have a bunch of solar panels. Lots of choices.

And if the needle is so far towards apocalypse, then the horse beats your diesel. Repairs itself, refuels itself, and replaces itself.

[–] rglullis 1 day ago

The ultimate preppers just become Amish.

[–] wang_li 1 day ago

If it works it's not stupid. Or something.

[–] davrosthedalek 1 day ago

> replaces itself At least two horses then.

[–] scottyah 1 day ago

That's fun till you run out. The sun isn't going to replace your daily use.

[–] grey-area 1 day ago

The supercharger stations will obviously keep working during the apocalypse.

[–] alterom 1 day ago

If you can choose between a truck that becomes a dead weight when the nearby power plant comes offline, and a truck that won't, the prepper mentality is to choose the latter.

Take it from a Ukrainian.

PS: my dual-fuel gasoline/LPG Renault Twingo in Poland will outrun any Cybertruck on the continent.

And, unlike electricity, you can stockpile gasoline.

[–] senderista 1 day ago

You can't stockpile gasoline for a long time without stabilizer.

Source: I've mucked up multiple small engines with bad stored gas.

[–] jethro_tell 1 day ago

sure, you can get propane or diesel setups that keep somewhere between a long time and indefinably.

[–] labcomputer 1 day ago

You can't store diesel forever, either.

Propane, sure, but now you're talking about something fairly exotic, at least in terms of vehicles you can buy "off the shelf."

In any case, you can't produce propane yourself. You can "produce" electrons with a solar panel.

Edit: My bias is toward North America, but I know of only one model of "normal person car" (city buses don't count) produced in the last 50 years that you could just walk into a dealership and purchase new: The Honda Civic NX. And that was sold for only a few years and only available in California.

[–] jethro_tell 1 day ago

I do agree with you on solar for moving off grid. I'm working to convert my full farm and most farm rigs to battery over time because "You can't be your own refinery, but you can be your own power plant."

But for conversations sake, if we're talking about diesel trucks, and specifically an old mechanical diesel like a 7.3 ford or a 12 valve cummins, and we're talking about stored diesel, ideally a class D died diesel with a high sulfer content, then you'll get considerably more lifetime out of it than the recommended 18-24 months.

Additionally, you can burn about anything, old motor oil, fry oil, diesel with algee in it if you treat it and change your filters. A good, mechanical, not very picky diesel will burn fuel that is 20+ years old. Not forever, and you'll go through some filters and maybe injectors. By the time you get to fuel sources that can't be burned in a machine like that, or you've burned it up past your parts and ability to repair. you'll probably have a lot of other problems.

If we're talking generators, you can get off the shelf propane generators and propane stores well.

[–] alterom 1 day ago

>You can't stockpile gasoline for a long time without stabilizer.

If you have a vehicle that runs on gasoline, you don't have to store gasoline for a long time to have a stockpile.

The cost of a few empty canisters is by far smaller than the cost of solar batteries, and putting gas into a vehicle in case of an emergency within a span of seconds rather than hours is a huge asset.

Not to mention: not everyone has space for solar. City dwellers are particularly constrained (as in: people who live in apartment complexes).

[–] macintux 1 day ago

I wouldn’t feel terribly comfortable storing gas cans in an apartment.

[–] alterom 1 day ago

People who live in apartment complexes can have storage spaces that are appropriate for a gas can (basement, shed, etc).

Finding space for a solar battery installation is a bit harder.

Not to mention: your Cybertruck isn't going to power your 7th floor apartment. You can probably figure out why.

[–] greenavocado 1 day ago

God how I wish I had a dual fuel vehicle. In my fever dream my natural gas service entrance would double as a gas station and I could just gas up my car in a few minutes at home with a compressor.

[–] Brian_K_White 1 day ago

Yeah but the Chinese minerals and the exotic infrastructure needed to manufacture cans and hoses...