GM Wants Your Electric Vehicle to Power Your Home—and Your Place

However, Wade Scheffer, vice president of GM Energy, insists: The reason most people don’t use their cars to power their lives comes down to “awareness, awareness, awareness.” To that end, on Tuesday, the smaller company announced two partnerships with sponsors: a “stress test” of dual charging capabilities with 30 GM employees, with the help of Michigan’s DTE Energy, and a plan to get 52,000 GM EVs on the PG&E main grid of Northern California and 2030 affiliates. useful.

However, getting all of GM’s vehicles connected and contributing to this group will be a long and winding road. Not all countries are interested in EVs or new electric technology right now. And even in early adopters it saysWhile lawmakers are grappling with new climate and energy policies, car-to-grid tech is still in its infancy.

It took researchers at the University of California at Irvine several years of collaboration with Kia and Hyundai to develop a home-to-home charging service for six Southern California homes. “Here we are two years later — not four weeks later — and resources around the world are just starting to address this,” says Scott Samuelsen, who led the project and is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Irvine. “Very new.” The project hopes to find out how the hybrid EV technology can fit into the lives of ordinary people – and, ultimately, save them money.

Features in vehicle-to-grid charging tech.

Courtesy of the GM

In March, Washington-based Puget Sound Energy announced a pilot program that the agency hopes will train new types of companies — auto manufacturers, auto companies — while supporting the electric grid. This work will be done early next year. An important part of the company’s work is to ensure that the systems of different automakers and equipment manufacturers can communicate, using the same standards. Clint Stewart, senior director of product development at PSE, describes himself as a “techno-optimist”; he believes that bidirectional charging is coming to scale. But not immediately. He said: “I would like to believe that in five years, we will be at a time when we will not know for sure.”

On GM’s to-do list: making sure customers can always keep track of their cars at the top of the range, so they don’t get stranded without pay when they want to untie and go somewhere else. In the end, the system can learn the car owner’s policy, and know not to start paying for the EV, say, the children’s soccer game. There are a few things that need to be fixed.

GM Energy’s Scheffer is eager to meet the occasion. “We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the way drivers interact with their cars and turn them into something other than transportation,” he says.