“Bi-Directional”, by Eric Peters

Soon, when there’s a brownout or blackout, you’ll be able to do your civic duty and send the electricity you put in your EV’s battery back out to the grid. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:

Have you heard about “bi-directional” charging? General Motors is going to be offering this capability with the battery powered version of the ’24 Chevy Silverado RST.  This capability will be added to its other battery powered devices, GM says. Other manufacturers of devices – including Rivian and Tesla – are touting similar capability.

What does it mean?

Well, GM says it means that a device so equipped can be used to power your home – when the grid power goes down. Electrical power can go both ways, as it were. Use the home’s grid power to charge up the device and – when the grid power goes down – use the device to keep the power on.

What GM does not say much about are the implications of this. The probable real purpose  of this. A news article mentions it, in passing. Bi-directional charge capability will “allow electric vehicles to not only receive energy but also send it back, enabling the vehicle to share power with other devices or even the utility grid.”

Italics added.

In other words, the grid will be able to suck the charge out of your device while you thought it was being charged. The implication being you won’t even own the electricity you paid for that was used to charge your device; you will be permitted to use it – if there isn’t a more pressing need. Such as the grid being so overtaxed trying to charge up other devices – or keep the lights on (and the AC/heat, too) that power must be extracted to compensate for what can’t be generated.

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