Vintage work crew photos

[Frank S]

Yes, but before electric vehicles, there were steam powered vehicles, and we still use steam technology (in a much more refined way) to generate electricity today. Batteries are the same--we went from one-use cells to rechargeable to today's high power density (but not yet the same as gas), and they, along with electric motor technology, continue to improve. Gas and diesel engines have to some extent, but not on the scale of electric (or steam, for that matter). There are also more important and less dangerous uses for our finite oil reserves.

And regarding your how to keep your house and car running in the event of a grid disaster, the ideal solution would be to have your own generation and storage capability (solar panels or turbines and batteries). Your house would operate primarily off your own generating capacity, but you can pull from the grid when you turn on your three-phase milling machine or dump your excess power back onto the grid after your batteries charge. In fact, Tesla has already delivered several larger generating stations/batteries to areas struck by natural disasters to localize power. You'd just have the same gear--it's available today--in your home, but on a smaller scale. We aren't there, yet, and there will be major growing pains, but I really think that's the way we are headed.

I have a 105year old 5 ton electric truck sitting in my shop that belongs to my partner. 6 of the 9 Edison batteries will still take and hold a charge.
As far as 3 phase power goes for years there have 3ph DC to AC converters at the commercial scale. While I was in Kuwait the company I was with was contracted to provide a pir of 750 KW diesel backup generators, the switch gear, the battery bank and the UPS to insure a 100% clean uninterrupted 50hz 415VAC power to a research lab in the American University of Kuwait. Our factory was powered by diesel generators as at our location no electric service of sufficient size was available to us my office ran 24/7 on battery power charged during the day by our 500KW generator 14 computers and associated equipment stayed on day and night even during the hours the generator was shut down. it would not have been too much of a stretch to add solar, had we had enough surface area for such an array