Married Ford engineers save wedding from power outage by using F-150 truck’s generator

‘Love seeing F-150 save the day,’ Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley tweeted

Two Ford engineers have been praised by the company’s CEO after they saved a wedding by using their truck’s generator to restore power following a sudden outage.

On 11 August, Harish Thiruvengadam, a mechanical engineer at Ford, and his wife Swetha Shailendra, an advanced connected vehicle engineer at Ford, were attending the wedding of friends in Farmington Hills, Michigan, when the power went out around 10pm.

However, following the sudden outage, which occurred after severe storms in the area and left the reception without music or light, Thiruvengadam remembered that his Ford F-150 PowerBoost truck comes equipped with Pro Power Onboard, a generator that is located in the bed of the model.

“The groom was ready to call it a night. There was no other option. Then I remembered the PowerBoost. I backed the truck up onto the lawn, took the cords and stretched them across the lawn and, oh my god. No one could believe there were outlets in the pickup bed. They thought there was a generator, but there was no loud sound,” Thiruvengadam told the Detroit Free Press.

In a clip shared by Ford Motors CEO Jim Farley to Twitter, the wedding guests can be seen milling about in the dark as the engineers plug various cords into the truck’s generator.

“Oh there’s the power! Woo!” the man filming the video can then be heard exclaiming as the truck turned on the various lights strung up at the reception and guests began to cheer. “F-150 baby!”

Farley captioned the clip: “Last weekend, there was a power outage during this couple’s wedding. Thankfully their friends - two @Ford employees - used their F-150 PowerBoost hybrid with Pro Power Onboard to bring the party back to life! Love seeing F-150 save the day.”

In addition to the lights, the truck also supplied power to the reception’s music and “a massive sound system with speakers, amplifiers and microphones,” according to the Detroit Free Press, which noted that, although the truck’s generator only comes with  four power outlets, “multiple items were plugged into power strips and those were plugged into the truck”.

According to the bride, Rachna Nanda Kumar, a data scientist from Tulsa, Oklahoma, the truck’s generator was able to successfully power the party until 2 or 3am, a feat she described as “amazing”.

“It was amazing,” she told the outlet. “Everybody was just getting into their groove and, with the help of the F-150, the party lasted until 2 am or 3am.”

Thiruvengadam also noted that various wedding guests, many of who work at Ford competitors, were jealous of the truck’s abilities, adding: “A lot of people there worked for the auto industry and there were competitors and they were a little jealous of our truck. They worked for GM and Chrysler but we - the Ford people - helped them out.”