All of General Motors‘ electric vehicles could soon become backup home generators.
The automaker plans to offer bidirectional charging on all of its EVs by 2026, starting with the 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV RST this year.
Bidirectional charging allows the EV to send energy from its battery to other sources, such as a house.
GM’s first-generation Ultium vehicle-to-home bidirectional charger will go on sale in the fourth quarter as Chevrolet launches the Silverado EV. GM did not disclose pricing details but said the bidirectional charger will be priced only modestly higher than a standard one of the same power level.
The technology will allow consumers to store and transfer energy to help offset electricity costs during peak demand times and to mitigate the effect of power outages, GM said.
“Our approach is very much an ecosystem approach,” Hoss Hassani, GM’s vice president of charging and energy, told Automotive News. “While the EV is at the center of the universe, it alone is not where all the value comes from, not for us as a business and not for the customer as an experience.”
Other automakers are also rolling out the technology. Ford Motor Co. has launched bidirectional charging technology on its F-150 Lightning electric pickup. Tesla officials said in March that the automaker’s vehicles would be capable of bidirectional charging by 2025, the same year GM plans to build EVs with Tesla’s North American Charging Standard connectors.
Hassani expects initial sales for the charger to vary by state, with most sales in California, Texas, New York, Michigan and Florida.
“Our push on education is going to be national, but we are going to expect some states to be early adopters in this versus others,” he said.
For now, most of the consumer benefit is peace of mind in having a backup energy source during a blackout or brownout, he said.
Once electric utility companies scale managed charging programs, which would allow consumers to schedule charging for off-peak times, consumers could save money by charging when the cost of electricity is lowest. Long term, consumers could profit by unloading energy from their vehicles to the grid, Hassani said.