Cybertruck V2H, will it be possible? V2H, or “Vehicle to Home” provides electricity from your electric vehicles battery to your house. Nissan has been working on their “Vehicle to Home” technology for a while now and it is apparently available in Japan now.
Why Would You Want To?
For me, this makes more sense than going the route of a battery storage system such as the Tesla Powerwall. The Powerwall has a mere 13.5 kWh’s of capacity, with their calculator, most houses will typically use 2-3 Powerwalls. At a current pricing of $6,500 (not including hardware or install), this becomes a significant investment.
Power Outage Frequency
It’s probably been over 3 years since we saw a significant power outage lasting several hours or into the next day. Dropping several thousand on Powerwalls just isn’t something I see as a good return on investment for my use-case.
Manual Transfer Switch
My neighbor installed a 30-amp manual transfer switch. This allows him to run a small, gas powered generator to power a certain number of circuit breakers.
Net Metering, Grid-Tied, and No Off Peak Rates
Depending on your local PUD, a battery storage seem could very well make sense. These are the main reasons for me, why it doesn’t in my use-case:
- We’re tried to the grid, our excess energy generation feeds back to the grid. We also get a credit for this generation if it exceeds our usage through a “net metering” agreement.
- Our electric company also does not provide a discounted rate for off-peak usage. We don’t have the option of pulling energy at night at a cheaper rate, storing it in batteries, and using it during the day. It all costs the same, regardless of the hour of the day.
- Since we’re tied to the grid, we don’t need to store the energy we provide.
The only reason I can see for storing energy would be in the event of a blackout, but since those rarely happen in our area I’d rather invest that money elsewhere. Possibly additional solar panels in a couple of years that are either ground mount or installed on the roof of a workshop.
So Will Cybertruck V2H Be Possible?
First things certainly depend on the amperage the Cybertruck is rated for on it’s 220v plug. If it’s at least 30 amps, I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be possible to run a 220v extension cord from the Cybertruck to a manual transfer switch on a house. Tesla could put in some software limitations or potentially some hardware restrictions as well. If it can support running a welder like they’ve said though, it would be hard to image it not supporting at least 30 amps of power.
We’ll have to wait for more specs on it’s onboard power to know for sure, but as far as I can see things seem promising.