Time for EV OEMs (both Light-Duty passenger and Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicle fleets) to step up to the table and help California (CA) provide energy resilience in case of PSPS, wildfires, and natural disasters.
Last week I posted that Sen. Nancy Skinner recently introduced the SB 233 bill to mandate all new EVs in CA to have bidirectional power starting in 2027.
The good news is that many EV OEMs have already implemented bidirectionality in their EVs (Nissan, Mitsubishi, Ford, Hyundai, Lucid, Rivian, Blue Bird,..) or announced support in future models (VW, Renault, Volvo,..).
However, some essential OEMs have still not made the jump.
It would be best if we do not have to mandate bidirectionality by legislation.
However, as the catalytic converter and the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) lessons have taught us sometimes an approach with both a carrot (the large CA market) and a stick makes wonders.
In the 1970s Southern California was “suffocating” from dangerous smog. To cope the catalytic converter was mandated on vehicles sold in CA.
Still, the mandate was met with massive resistance from the ICE vehicle OEMs: too expensive, voluminous, adding weight, and lowering driving efficiency – sounds familiar?
However, voila now all ICE vehicles in CA (and beyond) have catalytic converters.
The same happened with ZEVs in California (CARB penalties of up to $5,000 per ZEV credit deficit for cars sold in California not meeting OEM fleet percentage emission credit requirements – many OEMs decided 😱 to buy emission credits from Tesla).
As a result, we now have Tesla leading the way for the rest of the OEMs all jumping on the ZEV bandwagon led by CA.
We may use the same approach for achieving ubiquitous EV bidirectionality in California, and then the rest of the world will follow California’s lead (watch out for China🥵)
Bidirectional EVs can and should play an important role in providing energy resilience to CA in case of PSPS or natural disasters causing grid outages.
Focusing on economics is not enough (e.g. protecting a stationary battery business) the OEMs also have a social responsibility to mitigate the existential threat to CA and other regions of the world facing potentially devastating grid outages.
After all, why pay $78,000 (excl. installation) for 6 PowerWalls when a Hyundai Iconiq 5 (battery included👍) could provide the same emergency energy in case of grid outages? Don’t worry, stationary batteries will still be deployed “en masse” and co-exist with V2X.
It is all about using our limited resources most efficiently.
EV batteries are expensive and on average, only used 2-3 hours daily for transport. There are more efficient ways to utilize these battery resources.
Let’s set the EV batteries free to “spread their wings and soar” so they can reach their full potential – #FreeTheBatteries.
#v2g#resilience#wildfires#psps#v2gnow#tesla