California May Require Bidirectional Charging EVs. That Could Save Lives

A new California law could require the battery power in EVs to feed other devices, homes and even the grid could be a game-changer.

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Patrick George

By: Patrick George

Oct 6, 2024 at 12:00pm ET

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California officials could mandate that all new EVs sold there have bidirectional charging capabilities.
It could spread to other states or lead to a nationwide change in auto regulations.
V2L charging means EVs can support the grid during disasters or even power life-saving equipment, as we have seen from several recent natural disasters.

Many questions persistently pop up around electric vehicles, but this one has come up more often than others lately: "How will EVs hold up in a natural disaster?" Sure, there are reasons to be concerned about extreme cold or saltwater flooding. But what we've seen more and more of over the past year especially is people using their EVs as home-powering and even life-saving energy generators during extreme weather events. Many electric drivers in Houston kept their lights on during Hurricane Beryl, and just this past week, one veterinarian in Florida powered her practice with her Ford F-150 Lightning and Kia EV9.

That's because those EVs are among the few capable of bidirectional charging, or vehicle-to-load (V2L) charging, which means the energy from the battery can be sent to various devices, homes and even the electric grid. That feature can be an absolute life-saver during emergencies, but not all EVs are capable of doing so.

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This may soon be changing. It didn't get a ton of attention in the wider press this week, but a new law signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom is an extremely big deal. That law could end up requiring all new EVs sold in the state to offer V2L charging.

The bill from State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), S.B. 59, empowers the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and other agencies to require that future EVs be "capable of both charging and discharging electricity." This would mean a feature right now mostly found on the F-150 Lightning, Nissan Leaf, the Lucid Air, and EVs from General Motors and the Hyundai Motor Group to be pretty standard across the board. (Tesla has said it wants to add this feature by 2025, but we haven't heard much about it lately.)

It's crucial to note this isn't a requirement on new EVs yet; it's merely giving state officials power to enact such a thing at some future date. California "may require any weight class of battery electric vehicle to be bidirectional-capable if it determines there is a sufficiently compelling beneficial bidirectional-capable use case to the battery electric vehicle operator and electrical grid," the law states.

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If California pulls the trigger, it has huge implications for EV owners, the electric grid and the state's own resilience amid growing natural disasters.

"Electric vehicle batteries are an untapped and inexpensive source of energy storage that can provide flexible grid support," the bill's text says. "Integrating battery electric vehicles into the grid may provide benefits to ratepayers, including by increasing electrical grid asset utilization, avoiding otherwise necessary distribution infrastructure upgrades, promoting renewable energy resources, and reducing the cost of supplying electricity."

A story from California's Mercury News (published here by the Seattle Times) further explains these benefits:

By harnessing the untapped battery storage capacity of electric vehicles, states can address three challenges at once: cleaning up the air while keeping the lights on and reducing energy bills.

Santa Cruz Mountains resident Tammy Snyder, who plugged in her EV during last year’s fierce winter storms said “bidirectional charging will be a game changer.”

“If a power outage occurs, people with bidirectional charging can ride out the outage in relative comfort for quite a long time,” said Snyder, whose home is more than a dozen miles away from the nearest town. “One EV battery can power a refrigerator and other important devices for days.”

If you think of EVs as a way to combat air pollution and the climate change causing these more frequent extreme weather events, then V2L and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) mobile energy storage is their secret weapon. With more EVs on the road, they can power homes, support the electric grid during times of need and even supply electricity to medical devices if things get really bad. V2L can be used to power up other EVs, too. It's basically like having a big generator on wheels, and we've barely scratched the surface of what we can do with that idea.

Except, of course, that these generators don't create emissions like gas ones do—furthering California's other clean-air goals.

2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 - AC power export: vehicle-to-load (V2L)

Obviously, some preparation will be needed on the part of electric grids everywhere to take advantage of this feature, and some special equipment is often needed to power entire homes at once. And it's worth noting here that most likely, this could go well beyond California, perhaps even to the entire U.S. car market. California remains the single largest new car market in the U.S. and more than a dozen other states follow its emissions rules.

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That's why the state has been so instrumental in driving fuel economy improvements for the rest of the country. Since it's unlikely that automakers would want to spend the money to tailor their EVs for different individual states, this could simply become a feature on all EVs sold nationwide by the end of the decade.

As always, it will be interesting to see if the auto industry goes along with such a mandate—if it even happens—or finds a way to push back. Adding this feature could also make new EVs more expensive, although the technology behind them is getting cheaper all the time as it scales.

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But just in California, officials estimate that vehicle-grid integration could save the state $1 billion annually. And you can't put a price tag on human (or animal) life. If this is successful in the Golden State, expect to see more of it elsewhere.

Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com

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