Louisiana has experienced some of the nastiest weather in the U.S. lately, but Keith McGrew, who has lived in the rural area of West Monroe for all of his 46 years, was ready. On the third day of a recent blackout, while neighbors were struggling to find gas for their generators, McGrew was powering almost all of his house with his Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck. McGrew was even able to fire up his oven to satisfy a pizza craving.

“We were like, screw it,” he explained. “We got electricity and we can run all day long.”

As ice, snow and bitter cold stressed America’s power infrastructure in recent weeks, electric vehicles have filled in as emergency power sources, shifting from transportation to 6,000-pound backup batteries for a growing share of drivers.

U.S. drivers have bought about 630,000 electric cars and trucks capable of discharging electricity — what’s known as bidirectional charging — at levels strong enough to power a home or apartment, according to Cox Automotive and company sales reports. That figure is rising quickly too. One in five EVs purchased in the last quarter had so-called V2H — or vehicle-to-home capabilities — and analysts say the feature soon will be table stakes for those hoping to sell an electric car.

At the moment, about 14 of the 70 or so EV models available in the U.S. offer bidirectional charging. Every auto in the General Motors Co. product line can power a home in a pinch, as will high-end models from Hyundai Motor Co., Kia Corp. and Volvo Car AB.

That share is likely to climb in coming months. BMW Group promised bidirectional charging in its new iX3, a pledge echoed by Tesla Inc. for its next Model Y and Rivian Automotive Inc. regarding its R2 SUV expected to hit the market in the next few months.

And although Ford pulled the plug on its Lightning pickup, there are roughly 101,000 of them in U.S. driveways, many of which have served as tiny power plants during this winter’s brutal weather.

Ford sells a system that connects its vehicles to a home’s electrical panel — a product chief executive Jim Farley has crowed about on LinkedIn. The systems, which detect outages and switch power automatically, kick on about four times a year, on average, but last week, as outages hit different parts of the country, Ford said usage quadrupled.

John Halkias was another Lightning owner who was sanguine as more than 18 inches of snow fell on his home in North Canton, Ohio. His 2024 model was fully charged and plugged into his home’s critical systems: the refrigerator, bedroom heaters and the electric dog fence that keeps Ginnie and Bernie, the family’s two doodle mixes, on site.

“It’s a great peace of mind,” Halkias said. “I would say we could keep things going for a minimum of five to seven days with the truck alone.”