As electric vehicles become more common in U.S. driveways, manufacturers are finding new ways to add to their value proposition. Significantly lower fuel and maintenance costs are among the biggest market drivers. But as the popularity of Ford’s new F-150 Lightning pickup truck has shown, resiliency is also proving to be high on the list, as the batteries in upgraded versions of that vehicle can actually be used as a backup home generator for several days.

General Motors (GM) is taking that use case even further and has introduced a new business unit that builds a home energy infrastructure around its vehicles’ batteries. This kind of approach could spark a change in how we think of EVs in the future—possibly less as a traditional car with a new kind of drive train and more as a power resource that also provides transportation.

EV growth as more than a vehicle

EV sales growth ran laps around second quarter 2022 results for traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. While new vehicle sales as a whole fell 20% versus the same period a year earlier, according to Cox Automotive, EVs were up 12.9%, and they accounted for 12.6% of all U.S. vehicle sales that quarter, a 41.7% increase from Q2 2021. And consumers also now have a lot more options when shopping for EVs, with 33 models now available, up from 19 in 2021.

GM is making moves to use this growth as an opportunity for expanding its ambitions well outside the bounds of traditional automotive manufacturing. In October 2022, the company launched a new business unit, GM Energy, that’s planned to grow its footprint beyond customers’ garages and into their homes and businesses—all based on the power of its Ultium battery systems.

The business unit will combine new Ultium Home and Ultium Commercial products and service offerings with GM’s existing Ultium Charge 360 charging app and networking agreements. The company is also working closely with solar and storage provider SunPower to develop a bidirectional charging system and inverter that will allow vehicle-to-home power transfers. 

This means a GM vehicle plugged into an Ultium Home charger could serve as a backup generator during outages and take the home off-grid during peak-demand periods. The company also is developing utility partnerships to facilitate sales of electricity back to the grid through its GM Energy Services Cloud—a pilot of this approach is now underway with California’s Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).

Home charging and storage abilities

These home-charging capabilities are a lot like what Ford has introduced with its F-150 Lightning pickup truck. And it’s likely no coincidence that GM plans to introduce the new equipment and apps alongside its own new Silverado EV truck, a 2024 model scheduled to hit showroom floors in fall 2023. Pickups are big money makers for auto manufacturers, and their buyers are often open to added bells and whistles. Ford includes its backup generator capabilities in upgrade packages that can add more than $10,000 to the sales price. GM is expected to follow suit.

Both manufacturers’ plans take advantage of the significant storage capacity required to support their full-size trucks over a 200-mile-plus driving range between charges. The Lightning’s extended-range battery’s capacity is rated at 131 kilowatt-hours (kWh)—or approximately four days’ worth of power for an average U.S. home, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. A Tesla Powerwall, by comparison, tops out at 13.5 kWh, so three of those units would be needed to match the Lightning’s performance. This evolution of EVs, from transportation option to whole-home energy supplier, could lead some homeowners to rethink their interest in a standalone battery system when, say, they’re adding solar panels to their roofs.

With this calculation in mind, Ford and GM have developed relationships with solar companies—Ford with Sunrun and GM with SunPower—to create virtuous circles in which vehicle batteries are charged by the sun and used to support a home’s energy needs. However, GM offers a significantly more ambitious vision of the role an EV could play in the broader energy ecosystem. In its pilot effort with PG&E, the utility is testing the use of GM vehicles to support home operations when grid-supplied power stops flowing. In its March announcement, the companies said they hoped to start scaling the offering up by the end of 2022.

Additionally, GM says its Ultium 360 app could aid future vehicle­-to-grid programs by identifying and locating vehicle owners interested in selling power back to utilities. The company has begun reaching out to utilities interested in establishing programs that would turn the aggregated capacity of hundreds or thousands of EVs into a virtual power plant. The financial benefits of such agreements could give EV owners yet another value proposition to consider in their next car purchase.