General Motors will add bidirectional charging to its Ultium-based EVs

Enlarge / GM recently announced home charging hardware that was capable of bidirectional charging. Today it filled in the missing piece, announcing V2H capabilities are coming to Ultium EVs. (credit: Chevrolet)

General Motors is adding capabilities to allow its new electric vehicles to send power from their batteries to the owner’s home. Known as V2H, or bidirectional charging, it’s a relatively simple idea: an EV is a giant battery on wheels, so why not be able to use that to power other things? GM says the rollout will begin with model year 2024 EVs and will continue through to model year 2026.

There are actually a couple of different approaches to using an EV’s battery to power non-car stuff. An increasing number of EVs like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Volkswagen ID. Buzz offer AC outlets, and depending on the region, can provide either 120 V or 240 V power. That is usually known as vehicle to load, or V2L.

V2H amps things up a bit—quite literally—by sending power from the car back into a home electrical circuit, similar to a home storage battery. Nissan demoed but never implemented the idea for the second-generation Leaf back in 2018, but Ford did with its F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck.