Your EV Can Power Your House in an Outage — But Good Luck Recharging It
Bidirectional Charging During Grid Outages
David Roodman asked a sharp question: why buy a small emergency battery when an EV's large pack could do the job? The catch is that most vehicle-to-home systems treat backup power as a discharge-only mode. GM's Home Hub ends the discharge session once the grid returns, Ford has stopped selling the hardware, and Wallbox's Quasar 2 stumbles in practice. Only Tesla's Powershare with a Cybertruck can recharge during an outage, and that costs far more than a dedicated home battery.
The basic problem is that while several manufacturers support having the car power your house when the grid is down, they generally treat it as a separate discharging-only mode.