GM wants your parked EV to power the grid—but the setup costs $20,000

General Motors is pitching a bold plan to turn America’s parked electric vehicles into rolling power plants for the national grid, but the catch is steep: the required bidirectional charging hardware alone costs around $20,000. In an open letter to utility companies and energy policymakers, GM Energy vice president Wade Sheffer argued that the nation’s existing fleet of over 250,000 bidirectional-capable EVs—spanning Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC models—could collectively store enough energy to power roughly 120,000 homes for up to a week. The idea is to use vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology so EVs can feed electricity back into the grid during peak demand or supply shortages, creating a new revenue stream for owners while easing strain on utilities. The concept isn’t new—bidirectional charging has already been used to keep homes running during blackouts—but GM wants to scale it up to support local grids nationwide. However, the hardware required for bidirectional charging isn’t cheap. Wired reports that the necessary bidirectional charging equipment alone runs about $20,000 before installation, pushing the break-even point for owners to around five years. Scaling the technology faces another major hurdle: utility companies operate under wildly different regulations across states, meaning widespread adoption would require cooperation from thousands of organizations. GM is already collaborating with Pacific Gas and Electric in California and DTE Energy in Michigan, but a national rollout remains a distant prospect. Beyond cost and regulatory complexity, EV owners have another concern: battery health. While GM didn’t address the long-term impact of regularly discharging EV batteries to support the grid in its letter, it’s sure to become a key talking point as V2G programs expand. For now, GM’s vision is more aspirational than operational, but with America’s electrical grids under growing pressure from extreme weather, rising energy demand, and the expansion of AI infrastructure, the idea of EVs doing a second job while owners sleep could become a reality sooner than expected.