
What is bidirectional charging?
Most electric vehicles today use one-way charging, a process in which electricity is taken from the grid and transferred to charging the car’s battery.
On the other hand, bidirectional charging turns charging into a two-way street: Electricity can flow from the grid to charge a vehicle, or it can flow from an EV to the grid or to a home, office building, or device. With bidirectional charging, the DC power must be converted back to AC through a dedicated charger or inverter within the vehicle itself.
What’s Bidirectional Charging and Which EVs Offer It?
V2G, V2H, V2L: What’s the difference?

According to Sam Fiorani, Vice President of Global Vehicle Forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, the value of bi-directional charging will be realized in the coming years as more electric vehicles introduce the technology and the infrastructure is able to better support it.
“By the end of this decade, this will be the standard rather than a special feature,” Fiorani wrote in an email to Cars.com. “As more and more homes and apartments are built or upgraded to incorporate car charging, the benefits will be evident, particularly after a power outage where a refrigerator, sump pump, or other necessary item is required to run.”
Electric vehicles with bidirectional charging
While the potential benefits of bi-directional charging are numerous, the electric vehicles that provide power today are still limited. Currently, only V2G and V2H and the two widths respectively. V2L is available in . For Hyundai, this technology acts as a gateway to more advanced bi-directional charging as the automaker drives V2G capability overseas.
Nissan Leaf

Ford F-150 Lightning

Hyundai Ionic 5, Kia EV6

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV

What’s Bidirectional Charging and Which EVs Offer It?
Future: V2X
In addition to the above examples, many electric vehicle manufacturers are actively working to adopt Vehicle All-Thing (V2X), which integrates all of the bi-directional charging described above. Hyundai is running two beta programs in Europe to test the V2G charging software on modified versions of the Ioniq 5; Lucid, the luxury electric vehicle manufacturer, says it will soon offer two-way charging for; In 2021, Volkswagen promised to add bi-directional charging for all ID models equipped with a 77 kWh battery; And in April, Ford, GM, and Lucid joined the DOE alliance as part of an effort to design a plan for a large-scale V2X infrastructure.
