Bidirectional Charging Is Nearly Mainstream

Bidirectional charging, or V2H (vehicle to home), is one of the more important features of electric vehicles. It has the potential to keep the lights on during blackouts, save people money on their utility bills and help balance the grid.

August 6, 2025

Roberto Baldwin

The 2025 GMC Sierra EV connected to a bidirectional charging system. (GM Energy)

A home in Silicon Valley goes dark for a moment, then clicks back to life. A GM Energy employee had switched off the house's access to the grid. When it detects a lack of power the GM Energy PowerShift Charger box, inverter, and Silverado EV switch from charging the vehicle or sitting idle to powering the home.

Ford's F-150 Lighting and Kia's EV9 also have bi-directional charging boxes that can keep the lights on when the grid fails. Bidirectional charging, or V2H (vehicle to home), is one of the more important features of electric vehicles. It has the potential to keep the lights on during blackouts, save people money on their utility bills and help balance the grid.

"Since EVs generally have far more energy storage capacity than they use in a typical day, many homeowners could benefit from either a home integration system as power backup during outages or in most cases just a more basic V2L system that provides AC power to support essential needs like refrigerators and lights," Sam Abuelsamid, VP of Market Research at Telemetry told SAE.

Abuelsamid also noted that while there are larger technical and safety challenges for vehicle-to-load (V2L) systems than for just powering an individual home, the technology would allow utilities to pull power from idle EVs connected to bidirectional charging boxes.

According to 2022 data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) in the very broadest terms, the average home uses about 30kWh of electricity a day. Even with deviations in energy usage from region to region (homes in southern states typically use more electricity per day than homes in the northeast), most EVs have more than enough battery to run a house without seriously impacting the average American's day of about 37 miles behind the wheel.

More about home energy use

A Field of Walled Gardens

At issue is bidirectional interoperability. The Ford Charge Station Pro bidirectional charger won't work with EVs from other automakers. In fact, it only works with the F-150 Lighting and not with the Mustang Mach-E. GM Energy's PowerShift Charger box only works with GM vehicles. Meanwhile, Kia's partnership with Wallbox’s Quasar 2 charger brings bidirectional charging to the EV9, and that's about it.

None of these systems work outside of either one or a few EVs from a single automaker. GM told SAE that it would like its system to work with vehicles from other automakers in the future. There's no reason why any of these companies wouldn't want to generate sales outside their own ecosystem.

The work is being done. GM is working with utility PG&E on a Vehicle-to-Everything pilot program that would help the automaker and utility company figure out how best to implement vehicle-to-grid services.

It comes down to standards and getting everyone on board to build technology that works for all automakers. Once that happens, prices will come down and V2H will become available to nearly every home with an EV. The charging world just needs a USB-C moment: the moment when everyone is on the same page for the good of all.