"A fully off-grid system in California can run from $35,000 to $100,000, according to installers. At the low end, such systems cost roughly as much as an entry-level Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck...."

"Lithium-ion batteries weighing as little as 30 pounds, requiring minimal maintenance and costing $10,000 to $20,000 have replaced banks of lead acid batteries that used to cost tens of thousands of dollars, could weigh thousands of pounds and needed regular upkeep.... Off-grid systems are particularly attractive to people building new homes. That’s because installing a 125- to 300-foot overhead power line to a new home costs about $20,000, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. In places where lines have to be buried, installation runs about $78,000 for 100 feet.... [E]lectric cars may soon [serve as the battery for the system, but the ones] available now aren’t designed to send power to homes. But newer models like the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 will have that ability, said Bill Powers, a San Diego engineer who plans to go off the grid with the help of an electric car. 'The Holy Grail to me now is in electric vehicles.'"

I'm reading "Frustrated With Utilities, Some Californians Are Leaving the Grid/Citing more blackouts, wildfires and higher electricity rates, a growing number of homeowners are choosing to build homes that run entirely on solar panels and batteries" (NYT).

My excerpt combines text at the beginning of the article and the end. I've skipped all the stories about particular individuals in part because they had nothing to do with American-made trucks, and I thought it was interesting that a Chevrolet Silverado and a Ford F-150 popped up in this article. 

The other reason I skipped the people was that I didn't find them interesting. They weren't "doomsayers or the eco-hippies." The reason that's in quotes is because we're told that's not what these people are. These are Californians with enough money to buy land, build new houses, and cut themselves off from the unreliable Pacific Gas & Electric. 

There's a man "and his wife" who "bought five acres with spectacular views of snow-capped mountains. " The man was a home health care worker, we're told, and we're not told what his wife's job was. How could they afford such a fine place? And why isn't it a woman "and her husband"? Where's the gender equity in journalistic writing? I'm left suspecting that the woman's job is something more lucrative than home health care worker.

Another person in the article happens to own 2 Teslas. But off-the-grid house-building is presented as something you can do instead of buying that Chevrolet Silverado. Hmm. Okay. And yes, I'm saying that as a retired professor who, with her husband, just bought a Ford F-150. But I like to try to understand what kind of people these articles are about. Are they economically privileged and choosing to cut themselves off from the problems of the ordinary people who are stuck with the electric company? Or are they showing us something that we all could do? No, what about all the people in cities, in apartment buildings? There has to be a grid, doesn't there, and won't people going off the grid — rather than using their roofs to generate solar energy and feed it into the grid — make the grid even worse for everyone else?

I think the NYT is downplaying the privilege. It's got something cool to show us, the readers.