The world is excited about it, the technology is transformative, but much more to do to bring it mainstream.

When we went to the LADWP (pictured), 1 ratepayer of 4,000,000 was using the Lightning’s bidirectional capabilities. My discovery has also included 1:1 conversations with OEMs.

Publicly, the below have released or promised bi-directional charging models:

-KIA: #EV9
-Hyundai: #Ioniq7
-Tesla: #Cybertruck
-Ford: #F150Lightning
-GM: *9* new models (like #SierraEV, #BlazerEV, and #EscaladeIQ, Volvo’s recent announcement with dcbel for their new #EX90

What is important, is all the above are maintaining the warranty on the battery for this type of use. That’s big!

For most of us, including me, a vehicle’s first duty is transportation. It must first work to safely drive us around. Its moonlighting career as replacement home generator comes second.

Great, so if you buy a bi-directional vehicle… why isn’t that the end of the story?

Getting power from the car to “The Grid” requires collaboration with utilities as well as specialized hardware to deliver power from the vehicle back to the house (like what dcbel provides) and hardware for the house to safely move power both ways with the grid (if the power goes out, you need to disconnect from it, so you don’t electrocute a lineman working on it!).

There is a lot more here. Your car being able to power your house for days when the grid goes down is huge. There are ways to make it happen today, but it’s expensive ($10-$20k+) and slow (months+) — so we need early adopters, support, and innovation to hopefully make next year “the year of bi-directional charging”.