Ford Bi-Directional Charger for Ford EVs (and maybe Powerwalls?)

[holeydonut]

TOU swings are only going to get worse and worse over the coming years. IMO, having batteries means never having to look at the clock and ask yourself "what's the TOU rate right now, can I turn on dishwasher so the stuff is dry and put away by the time I go to bed?"

And you can eat a nice warm meal for dinner instead of a cold bologna sandwich without wondering if you're being a responsible Californian.

 

[cali8484]

The question is simply continue to get your power "publicly" or to "privatize" your own power generation.

That maybe the main concern for you but I doubt that's the main consideration for most people looking for backup power solution with or without solar. There are people who see solar and home batteries as hobby toys similar to how some people view cars but these are very small niches compared to the mainstream market.

 

[Southpasfan]

As far as I know, current non solar/PW backup solutions consist of getting a generator. From reading the posts it seems that there are small ones which run on gasoline and ones which can be set up to run on natural gas. My experience is personally limited to the time I was on vacation at my mother in laws place on Kaui when Iniki rolled through. We got airlifted out by the Air Force ans then we shipped a generator back to her.

In her case, an EV would have been useless, but as I said, V2H is way better than nothing and, given the right situation, can save the day.

I dont know how many people think solar and PWs are some sort of toy. I mean, they are most assuredly not. Many people figure correctly, or incorrectly, that it wouldn’t work for them. So they probably don’t pay attention to the tech.

 

[h2ofun]

As far as I know, current non solar/PW backup solutions consist of getting a generator. From reading the posts it seems that there are small ones which run on gasoline and ones which can be set up to run on natural gas. My experience is personally limited to the time I was on vacation at my mother in laws place on Kaui when Iniki rolled through. We got airlifted out by the Air Force ans then we shipped a generator back to her.

In her case, an EV would have been useless, but as I said, V2H is way better than nothing and, given the right situation, can save the day.

I dont know how many people think solar and PWs are some sort of toy. I mean, they are most assuredly not. Many people figure correctly, or incorrectly, that it wouldn’t work for them. So they probably don’t pay attention to the tech.

For me, the solar and batteries are toys. The generator is all i needed. I can pay for a LOT of electricty for what I have spent.

 

[holeydonut]

For me, the solar and batteries are toys. The generator is all i needed. I can pay for a LOT of electricty for what I have spent.

You mean... for your resiliency SGIP incentive... your 5 batteries were to support critical life support functions and your home needs the backup power per the SGIP Equity Resiliency guidelines

 

[h2ofun]

You mean... for your resiliency SGIP incentive... your 5 batteries were to support critical life support functions and your home needs the backup power per the SGIP Equity Resiliency guidelines

Yep, still the case, but the amount of time I am investing is just nuts.

 

[Southpasfan]

For me, the solar and batteries are toys. The generator is all i needed. I can pay for a LOT of electricty for what I have spent.

Although I think is a bit harsh, back in the day when it was not clear whether solar panels were even less expensive than just buying the electricity, (which was what, five or ten years ago?) one could look at their neighbor, with a similar house, putting up some panels and say "huh, that's a nice way to put green dollars where your mouth is, wonder if they work" and go back to your gardening. My point is that it is quite a different ballgame now.

One of any of my neighbors, with a similar sized house and electric bill, can go ahead and pay $5,000 to $6,000 more than me per year, if they like, but for around a hundred thousand bucks over the next 20 years (which is how much less I'm going to pay) they can call the panels and powerwalls "toys" all they want.

I mean, I can't really be too green proud about it, that should be reserved for people who did it even when it did not save any money.

Now that the system is operating my monthly bill is $12 to the utility and $330 for the system, as opposed to $700 to the utility. That's it. From day 1.

 

[h2ofun]

Although I think is a bit harsh, back in the day when it was not clear whether solar panels were even less expensive than just buying the electricity, (which was what, five or ten years ago?) one could look at their neighbor, with a similar house, putting up some panels and say "huh, that's a nice way to put green dollars where your mouth is, wonder if they work" and go back to your gardening. My point is that it is quite a different ballgame now.

One of any of my neighbors, with a similar sized house and electric bill, can go ahead and pay $5,000 to $6,000 more than me per year, if they like, but for around a hundred thousand bucks over the next 20 years (which is how much less I'm going to pay) they can call the panels and powerwalls "toys" all they want.

I mean, I can't really be too green proud about it, that should be reserved for people who did it even when it did not save any money.

Now that the system is operating my monthly bill is $12 to the utility and $330 for the system, as opposed to $700 to the utility. That's it. From day 1.

This is all great is we still have NEM, and no per KW interconnect fee. If this changes happen, I am screwed

 

[gati2]

I really like the idea of V2H and having that combined with PowerWalls. In particular, in my case, my power outages have generally been fairly isolated and so being able to go out and charge my vehicle and bring back electricity to the house seems like a great idea.

 

[jjrandorin]

I really like the idea of V2H and having that combined with PowerWalls. In particular, in my case, my power outages have generally been fairly isolated and so being able to go out and charge my vehicle and bring back electricity to the house seems like a great idea.

This bolded part is likely why we will never have it. "Going out and charging your vehicle, then running your home on that" would only work if the electricity you went out to "fill up on" was at LEAST as expensive as the energy to run your home, or, said another way, that there was NO FREE CHARGING for the vehicle, ANYWHERE.

 

[gati2]

This bolded part is likely why we will never have it. "Going out and charging your vehicle, then running your home on that" would only work if the electricity you went out to "fill up on" was at LEAST as expensive as the energy to run your home, or, said another way, that there was NO FREE CHARGING for the vehicle, ANYWHERE.

Are there that many free charging stations these days?

I certainly don't mind paying for the electricity in this scenario and would likely be willing to pay more, especially since I'd hope this wouldn't be necessary more than say once every couple of years.

 

[jjrandorin]

Are there that many free charging stations these days?

I certainly don't mind paying for the electricity in this scenario and would likely be willing to pay more, especially since I'd hope this wouldn't be necessary more than say once every couple of years.

Yes, there are still a good number of free charging stations around, as well as (tesla specific) people who still have "free unlimited supercharging". YOU may be thinking "I will just do this once every couple of years", but there absolutely 100000% would be people who would try to power their home on free electricity on a constant basis by going to a free charging station, then driving back home to plug in.

Before you (or anyone else) says "people who can afford a tesla would never do that", all one needs to do is look at how many people who own teslas with free unlimited supercharging line up to "get the electricity they are entitled to", while NOT on road trips. These are people who could afford model S and X vehicles at the old pricing (so 90k+) yet, many of them are eager to make sure they charge their car "for free" at superchargers.

If those people could come home and then power their home on that "free" electricity, they would. If someone is willing to go through the somewhat inconvenience of going to a supercharger to charge their car instead of charging at home, they absolutely are going to go and do that same thing to run their home off of it.

Unless and until this is not possible, we wont see V2H from tesla, in my opinion. This isnt really a "tesla" thing. If there is any free charging in convenient places for people who buy this Ford truck, you can BET business owners WILL charge these vehicles at a free charger, go out and work all day use that free electricity. Why wouldnt they? Businesses try to make money, and if you can eliminate fuel as a cost, thats HUGE.

Of course, whether there is free charging for these ford vehicles anywhere, remains to be seen, but, especially if they have free high speed DC charging, where they only have to sit there an hour to get enough electricity for their daily tasks, they absolutely will do it (and homeowners who buy this vehicle will do it too).

This falls squarely under "this is why we cant have nice things".

 

[SVDNN]

You certainly make a good point as to why there likely would not be unlimited V2H charging for Tesla customers. But a simple limit (V2H only when grid is out) will be make it very appealing for many people and not so implausible to implement. The other point that people will not want to sacrifice their mobility of EV car during power outage probably still do not appreciate how large the batteries are in EVs…can still use partially to charge home and to go when needed.

 

[cali8484]

Yes, there are still a good number of free charging stations around, as well as (tesla specific) people who still have "free unlimited supercharging". YOU may be thinking "I will just do this once every couple of years", but there absolutely 100000% would be people who would try to power their home on free electricity on a constant basis by going to a free charging station, then driving back home to plug in.

Before you (or anyone else) says "people who can afford a tesla would never do that", all one needs to do is look at how many people who own teslas with free unlimited supercharging line up to "get the electricity they are entitled to", while NOT on road trips. These are people who could afford model S and X vehicles at the old pricing (so 90k+) yet, many of them are eager to make sure they charge their car "for free" at superchargers.

If those people could come home and then power their home on that "free" electricity, they would. If someone is willing to go through the somewhat inconvenience of going to a supercharger to charge their car instead of charging at home, they absolutely are going to go and do that same thing to run their home off of it.

Unless and until this is not possible, we wont see V2H from tesla, in my opinion. This isnt really a "tesla" thing. If there is any free charging in convenient places for people who buy this Ford truck, you can BET business owners WILL charge these vehicles at a free charger, go out and work all day use that free electricity. Why wouldnt they? Businesses try to make money, and if you can eliminate fuel as a cost, thats HUGE.

Of course, whether there is free charging for these ford vehicles anywhere, remains to be seen, but, especially if they have free high speed DC charging, where they only have to sit there an hour to get enough electricity for their daily tasks, they absolutely will do it (and homeowners who buy this vehicle will do it too).

This falls squarely under "this is why we cant have nice things".

When Tesla actually offers V2H they can simply disable free charging for cars with V2H via software as they already do for other features. Then it's up to buyers to choose between free charging and V2H.

 

[gati2]

FWIW I believe the Wallbox Quasar is being sold (or will be sold "soon") in the US and has already been sold in Europe and Australia. My understanding is that the use of this with the Nissan Leaf doesn't void the warranty on the car. The output numbers aren't as good though.

I agree completely that if there is a way to abuse something then it will almost certainly get abused. However, I'd be surprised if the free services didn't have terms and conditions that include the out clause of being able to change any of these terms whenever we want. Skimming the Tesla FAQ, they already have an exclusion for commercial use.

I also agree it will likely be a financial decision - is the potential for an increased customer base going to outweigh the hassle of dealing with the abuse cases? My feeling is that infrastructure is still a bigger issue where people won't or can't afford the electrical work for this hookup to really make it mass market

 

[Southpasfan]

Since Tesla's free supercharging is entirely unrelated to home energy use I also don't think that's going to be a big deal. After all, right now, free supercharging already means those with free supercharging are using less from the grid for those with home charging, and those same people are also sending more energy back to the grid from their solar systems than they would be if presumably they had no free supercharging. Free supercharging already results in less use of electricity people would otherwise pay for, so taking it to an extreme only hurts utilities.

To the extent Tesla's intent for lifetime free supercharging is not intended to power your house, wll, like gati2, you have to remember that not only could Tesla disable it, Tesla can actually see through data whether someone is using free supercharger kwh to power their house.

Just don't see it as a barrier to adoption.

I suppose technically it would hurt powerwall sales, but I really don't think so. I have, as you can see, Solar PWs a Model 3 and an eGolf. Even if the Wallbox was available now, and I got one, I actually use the cars for driving -- they don't sit at home all day like the PWs do and get charged up and then discharge.

It would be nice to have, in essence, a couple of spare PWs on tap, but V2H charging is really not a replacement for PWs.

V2H does nudge us along to the ultimate game changer though, the elimination of "peak" by charging during the day and discharging in the early evening (or all night). So I like it.

 

[bevo]

None of the cars that have free charging today can do V2H as they are not bidirectional. Only future cars with this feature will support V2H. And none of those cars will be offered lifetime free charging, at least from Tesla. And if other companies or hotels offer free charging, Tesla won't care.

 

[moa999]

FWIW I believe the Wallbox Quasar is being sold (or will be sold "soon") in the US and has already been sold in Europe and Australia.

Works on the Leaf because V2x is part of the specs for Chademo.

It's not for CCS1 or CCS2, only listed as on a future roadmap.

So it's now even clear how Ford, or even Kia with the V2L feature on the new EV6 (Vehicle to Load - basically a PowerPoint) will even work unless they go outside the specs.

And from the pricing I've seen in Australia on the wallbox it's only slightly cheaper than a Powerwall.
Given most people actually use their vehicles some of the time I know what I'd prefer.

 

[slcasner]

At Battery Day, Elon Musk seems to reason that there have not been enough demands for V2G to offer the feature:

“Vehicle to grid sounds good but has much lower utility than people think,”

“We actually had that with the original Roadster. We had vehicle-to-grid capabilities — nobody used it.”

I was at Battery Day and shouted back (from inside my assigned Model 3) when I heard that statement. The first 500 Roadsters (Roadster 1.5) used the Reductive Charger design licensed from AC Propulsion. It was capable of transferring power in either direction, and AC Propulsion did demonstrations of V2G in some experimental settings. But as the owner of Roadster VIN 33 is has never been possible for me to use this capability because the firmware does not allow it. There is no user control to enable it.

For Roadster 2.0 after VIN 500 Tesla changed to a different charger design to avoid the license fee.

Elon's statement was as bad as GM's statement that they brought the EV1 to market but nobody would buy them. That's because GM refused to sell the EV1, they would only lease them so they could take them all back and crush them after the lease. Several owners tried to buy them at the end of the program even with the drive train removed, but GM refused.

 

[cali8484]

Elon's statement was as bad as GM's statement that they brought the EV1 to market but nobody would buy them. That's because GM refused to sell the EV1, they would only lease them so they could take them all back and crush them after the lease. Several owners tried to buy them at the end of the program even with the drive train removed, but GM refused.

Tesla is in a precarious situation because it sells EV's and home battery systems unlike other big EV players. Not surprising that Musk doesn't want to say anything that might hurt PW sales. Let's how long that excuse can continue as more and more other EV's offer V2H.