So to power the house in the event of a power outage? And if not, anybody know if any are in development?
Kia EV9
Kia ev6
Everybodys situation is different, but real bidirectional charging would be huge for me. I have a pellet stove and after ignition it’s only drawing electricity for the fans. An EV battery could heat and light my house for weeks after a bad winter storm.
Upcoming RAM 1500 Ramcharger can do it too. Since it has a generator, it can deliver power even after the battery is used up.
ALL GM Ultium vehicles have/ will have this feature. I believe some Hyundai, Nissians, Kias, etc have the feature, as well.
I remember when I bought my iPace in 2019 JLR was claiming this was coming “soon”. Still waiting.
RJ shared that all Rivians have backwards compatibility. It’s something they’re working on implementing.
This is correct. Rivians are hardware capable of bidirectional charging, they’ll need a software update to implement it.
Polestar 3 does too
Lucid Air got it recently via a software update.
You mean V2L?
You don’t even need to have V2L in the Chevy Bolt group some owners used an inverter to power their homes during a storm
It’s apparently standard in Chinese EVs. All you need is to buy a lateral discharge cable (like 50 dollars) and you can pull up to like 1,000W.
Quasar got a bidirectional chademo charger for about $5000.
Enphase has demo models, don’t think they are for sale yet
Honestly, I don’t see the value of this. I don’t want my EV battery supplementing the power grid or supplying power to the house. I wouldn’t want to have a dead car in the morning if the power went out and it’s trying to power the house. Installation cost is another factor. You will need an ATS to isolate your house from the grid, you can backfeed power. It’s a safety issue. At this point if your are worried about the power going out, buy a generator. I think we would need like 12 Powerwalls to power our house during the summer for 1 day. Air conditioning sucks the power up. A standby generator is $10k, it’s a lot cheaper.
What about for $?
Like $4,000 in one summer https://fermataenergy.com/article/electric-vehicle-generates-revenue-and-energy-savings
You’d also charge back up at night when consumption drops
I wouldn’t want to have a dead car in the morning if the power went out and it’s trying to power the house.
I’d assume you set it up in a way where you have to actively switch the direction to avoid this - would be a pretty big oversight if they haven’t thought of that before bringing these things to market
I think we would need like 12 Powerwalls to power our house during the summer for 1 day. Air conditioning sucks the power up.
I guess that part is going to depend hugely on location - I’m in New England and have whole home AC but I don’t think I get above 35kWh/day in peak summer. Seems like the Lightning would be a pretty ideal backup solution in my case; extended range battery holds 131kWh, so theoretically I could run off that for almost 4 days if it could supply enough current to keep everything running.
The reason is avoiding doubling the the battery needs (car+house) when solar panels are available. A modern compact house with proper insulation and heat pump needs overnight less then 20 kwh in the worst winter days. Being able to use one quarter of the battery when the sun is down, recharged the day after, would be really money and environmentally effective. Why buying a fixed home battery like powerwall in a future where most of the time at least a mobile battery (a car) would always be connected to the home grid?
It sounds like your needs are extreme. I live in Florida and commonly end up without power for about a week after hurricanes. The F150 lighting could cover my peak draw and could cover my average usage in summer for at least four days on a single charge. If I tried to cut down at all, it could probably hit nearly a week. Why would I want to spend more to burn gas that costs more to use a generator? Why would I pay a bunch of money for a home battery when I need it rarely and have what I need in my car? For me it’s by far the cheapest and best solution.
