400+ people, 20 electric grills, zero grid power
A world record attempt happened today on the NSW Central Coast, and the most interesting part isn’t the cooking.
The Big BBQ is running 20 electric grills across Zestiny Farm in Gosford entirely on Vehicle-to-Load power — meaning the electricity comes from about 14 BYD EV batteries parked on site, not from a generator or a grid connection. That’s a non-trivial amount of load. Cooking for 400 359 people simultaneously, for about 45 minutes, on portable electric grills, without a gas or wood in sight.
V2L (Vehicle-to-Load) has been available on a handful of EVs for a few years now — the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the Ford F-150 Lightning, the BYD Atto 3, and others can push power out through a dedicated outlet or the charge port. Most owners use it for camping gear or running power tools on a worksite. Using a fleet of them to power a large outdoor cooking event is a different scale of application, and it’s a reasonable proof of concept for what bidirectional EV technology can actually do when you think beyond the car. These EV utes didn’t ruin the weekend. They made it possible.
The event is at Zestiny Farm, a family-run certified organic property that has been farming on Mediterranean principles for over 50 years and now runs paddock-to-plate events alongside its regular produce operation. The farm supplies the ingredients directly — zucchini, beetroot, corn, black beans — for the veggie burgers participants will cook. The lemons grown there also go into Oh! Lemonaid, a product from OzHarvest Ventures, which is the charity partner for the event. Every ticket contributes toward a $50,000 fundraising goal for OzHarvest, whose yellow vans rescue 250 tonnes of food per week across Australia.
The record being attempted is the world’s largest BBQ cooking lesson. The format is straightforward: everyone cooks the same two dishes at the same time, following a lead instructor on PA. The dishes are an Aussie veggie burger and a charred garlic flatbread, both using produce from the farm. The current record stands at 336 people, in the US/Texas. After the Guinness verification, there’s a free sausage sizzle and live music for the rest of the afternoon.
What makes this worth writing about isn’t the world record angle. It’s the V2L application. Outdoor events have a power problem — you either run a long cable from a building, or you bring a generator. Generators are noisy, smell, and burn diesel. The Big BBQ is using neither. If the event runs cleanly on EV battery power, it’s a concrete demonstration that V2L has practical uses well beyond individual camping trips.
Australia didn’t hold any BBQ world records. Until now! 359 people participated (with 5 disqualifications), setting a new record, for Australia. That’s probably the least interesting fact about today, but it’s the hook that got 400 people to the Central Coast hinterland on a Sunday in June.
The event was sold out. You can follow it at @bigbbqau on Instagram.
