This past weekend proved that no storm is too tough to weather for Currie Motors Ford of Valpo. When a power outage struck the building on Saturday, July 23, Currie Motors Ford of Valpo was easily able to restore power to its entire sales department with the help of a couple of the dealership’s very own electric vehicles.
A total of 16.8 kilowatts (kW) of power was supplied from the vehicles to bring power back to Currie Motors Ford of Valpo. This power came from two trucks in particular: the 2022 F-150 Lightning and the 2022 F-150 3.5L Gas Engine Powerboost. The trucks each have a built-in 7.2 kW generator, making them the perfect alternative for a power boost when business operations still need to be carried out as normal.
While a power outage is never ideal for any business, General Manager Frank Herrera was able to use some quick thinking to get things back on track so the sales department could continue assisting customers as needed, as the outage occurred while the dealership was open for business.
“It was my gut instinct,” he said. “On my drive to the dealership, I decided that we needed to be able to power our sales department and our office; We needed to be able to conduct business as normal. When I arrived at the dealership, I instructed our staff to grab the keys to those trucks and instructed our porters to grab extension cords. We were able to run power to our servers so we would have internet and phone service, and we were also able to power the sales desks and one finance office, just off of those two trucks. We do not expect these things to happen, but I knew we had to jump into action.”
The outage lasted for a total of six hours, and both trucks had no problems keeping up to bring electricity back to the dealership. An individual truck is even capable of powering a home or similar-sized building for a few days, so a few hours was no challenge at all for Currie’s trucks.
“We were out of power for six hours. Each truck has the capability to power an entire home for three days under normal use or seven days with rationed usage,” Herrera said. “At that point, the truck would either need to be filled with gas or charged.”
Rain or shine, Currie Motors Ford of Valpo is open for business with the largest inventory of new vehicles in Northwest Indiana. For more information, cruise on over to www.fordofvalpo.com today to learn more and get started on purchasing your own electric vehicle today.
