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Table of Contents
⚡ This Week’s Big Charge
💡 What Smart EV Charging Could Be
I thought I was hot stuff the one time I plugged a coffee pot into my electric vehicle during a winter power outage. But as satisfying as that coffee was (and it was), I knew I was only scratching the tip of the iceberg when it came to bidirectional charging.
For those who don’t know, that’s the clunky term for an EV’s ability to act as a mobile power bank—to send electricity back into another device, or your home, or even the grid itself.
Not every EV can do this, but in 2025, it’s becoming available with an increasing number of cars. And this week, Ford showed what the future could look like if this becomes more widespread: cheaper power bills, less demand on electric utilities, and even making money by selling electricity back to the grid.
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🛻 What We Know About Ford’s Home Power Management Program:
The F-150 Lightning has native bidirectional charging. When paired with Ford’s Charge Station Pro home charger and Home Integration System from Sunrun, owners can unlock some special features—if they have a participating utility.
It works like this: electricity rates are cheaper mid-day and at night. They’re highest in the evening when everyone’s home, watching TV, cooking dinner, and so on.
With Home Power Management, the truck automatically charges during cheaper times and then powers the house itself during more expensive times of day. This is all managed via the truck’s built-in software.
Essentially, the truck becomes a big battery that lets your home skip the most expensive parts of the day, in terms of electric costs. This should bring down home power bills.
At one utility, Texas’s TXU, Ford says it could save up to $600 per year in electric costs.
If they need to drive somewhere, they just unplug or use the app to recharge the car instead of the home.
But that’s not all: it allows EV drivers to return power to the grid, potentially earning financial incentives from their utility.
Or as Ford puts it: “Your next side-hustle may come from your parked vehicle.”
It may be limited for now—one vehicle, from one brand, in select utility markets—but it’s a fascinating glimpse of what EVs can do as America’s electric grid is under more strain than ever.