Batteries: How cheap can they get?

In the best case: Just deal with it proactively. Watch supplies, try to stay informed. You mitigate what you can to stretch things out (making French toast in a skillet outside on the BBQ grill in the aftermath of a winter storm may be the best way to use available energy and feed people a tasty meal, even if it does seem absurd). Plan to leave before things become unmanageable, and adjust that plan as things change, and be willing to resolutely execute that plan before things go from bad to worse.

If you forecast that your supplies will be very slim on day 5, and you haven't left for greener pastures by day 3 or 4, then the the worst case is already unfolding. GTFO before the worst-case ever happens.

But in that worst case: One can call on someone else for help. This is one of those situations where it's time to cash in some favors, and/or where it pays off to always be friendly and helpful with to the neighbors even if they really seem like a bunch of assholes. (The time to start being friendly with the neighbors is right now, by the way.)

(My own backup plan only keeps me rolling both semi-comfortably and independently for about 24 or 48 hours without power in the winter, so I'm leaving after the first night or ASAP. I don't have the complications and niceties offered by something like an F-150 Lightning, but finite resources remain finite no matter their form.)

You absolutely can do that. You still need a charging controller and a BMS, obviously. But you can avoid the AC round-tripping.

Yeah. Talked to a couple of solar companies. They were utterly focused on costs vs utility costs and very opaque about how that was being modeled. And it was based on the rules back then--which of course could not hold. Net metering is a huge subsidy that is already being walked back.

The true value of solar or wind is the cost of the fuel it saves. Nothing more. Even if his numbers come true there's a big problem--bad weather could deplete your batteries. You want to turn to the electric company in that case? You are once again in the situation that the value is only the fuel.

I'm currently in a pickle in this regard, as my new house has solar on Net Metering, but no ATS or battery. While its nice to only pay the base connection fee, I still go dark when the line power does.

I'd love to add at the very least an ATS to keep my fridge and freezer going when the power goes out during the day, if not a battery but I have little to no documentation on the existing solar install, so i'm reaching out to the county to see if permits have any info. Fun times!

It depends on what "meaningful backup power" is.

If I had an EV that I could use to run house-sized stuff with, and the power were off for an indefinite time due to a storm or something, then I'd like to think that I'd use that EV just as sparingly as I would my little Jackery device and portable solar panel (that I can coax at most about 80W from on a perfectly-sunny day).

I can use my rig to [sparingly] run some lights, a small fan, and to keep portable electronics going -- with hardwired Internet if that is something that is useful/extant for information or to pass the time with.

But I'm not going to use it to run the fridge, the home theater, the thirsty desktop PC, or using the laundry machines or the HVAC. I'm also not cooking with it.

I have a portable heater that will keep me warm, and enough fuel to do this for a day or two. I know how to keep the water running to keep pipes from breaking. I don't need the fridge: When the power goes off, I can unload the important stuff into my Orca cooler along with the last contents of the self-refilling ice bin in the freezer and it'll stay fine for days. If it's stupid-cold outside, the frozen stuff that I'd like to try to keep can go outside in a tote. I have a propane grill for quick outdoor cooking with plenty of fuel, and a butane burner for indoor cooking that also has a reasonable amount of fuel for making coffee or frying some eggs or whatever.

I've tested these methods off-grid. They work.

While I do enjoy the wonders of modern electrification rather immensely, and TBH I'd find myself struggling to get through a day without some small aspects of it, I don't need a ton of it to feel reasonably comfortable for a limited time.

In this very limited use (which is not dissimilar to car-camping inside of a house), a suitable EV can probably cope for a few days without substantially reducing its immediately-useful range. It'a a small drop in a large bucket of battery power.

It can probably also keep the fridge running, and run a furnace that burns dinosaurs: If the regular F150 Lightning has a 98kWh battery, and one draws an average of 500W from that battery (which is a rather hefty average if living lightly post-disaster), then one uses ~12% of its capacity (or about 28 miles of its 230 mile range) per 24-hour day.

Over two days (48 hours), that's only 56 miles spent of 230 possible miles.

What kind of disaster can you imagine where "losing" that 56 miles of range would be of any consequence -- where 56 miles means the difference between "Oh, we got this. Everything is fine." and "ZOMG if only we could drive a little further! But we can't! We're RUINED!!!"

I can't think of any that have happened around here in my own lifetime,