GM Updates 250,000 EVs with Vehicle-to-Grid Firmware, Announces Grid-Scale Sodium-Ion Batteries (fortune.com)
- Reference: 0183775602
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/06/13/0224235/gm-updates-250000-evs-with-vehicle-to-grid-firmware-announces-grid-scale-sodium-ion-batteries
- Source link: https://fortune.com/2026/06/09/general-motors-utility-in-disguise-sodium-ion-batteries/
Or [2]As Fortune put it , "America's electric grid is buckling under extreme weather, aging infrastructure, and an AI build-out that is quietly rewriting U.S. power demand — and General Motors wants to turn that crisis into a business." They describe GM's plan as offering itself "as a distributed utility in disguise... stitching together hundreds of thousands of battery-powered cars, new grid-scale storage, and a unified charging platform into what amounts to a virtual fleet of power plants."
> The bet puts GM on a collision course with Ford's newly branded Ford Energy unit as both Detroit rivals race to repurpose underused EV capacity for a more urgent problem: keeping the lights on in the AI era. GM's case rests on three planks. The first is its existing fleet. GM says more than 250,000 of its EVs on U.S. roads can already charge bidirectionally — pulling electricity from the grid and sending it back. "Every evening, a quiet transformation occurs across the American landscape," GM Energy vice president Wade Sheffer writes in an open letter to utilities and regulators, describing the EVs sitting in driveways as "a massive opportunity to aggregate energy storage capacity."
>
> A firmware update is rolling out to customers with GM Energy's vehicle-to-home hardware, converting those systems into full vehicle-to-grid assets with no new hardware and turning home backup systems into grid resources when utilities need them. GM is piloting the idea in Michigan with DTE Energy at 30 employee homes, and has sketched a 2030 vision with Pacific Gas & Electric in which more than 52,000 GM EVs help balance the grid out of a projected 130,000 vehicles in the area.
GM is also "seeking partnerships with utility companies nationwide to assist in offering such vehicle-to-grid services for customers," [3]reports CNBC , noting it's one of two moves "meant to address concerns about rising energy costs amid an artificial intelligence boom."
[4] Forbes reports that GM's second goal "is to leapfrog the dominant battery cell tech used for energy storage packs right now" — right past the LFP (lithium-iron phosphate) stage, "which is dominated by China."
> Sodium batteries are cheaper to use than LFP because they don't need an additional cooling system. They also have a 20-year usable life and are made from materials that can be sourced from within the U.S., the company said at a briefing in San Francisco on Tuesday. "Sodium-ion actually is the better chemistry for that application. And when I say sodium-ion is better, I mean GM's version of sodium-ion," Kurt Kelty, GM's battery chief and a long-time Tesla battery executive, told Forbes . He said GM is seeing great results from its prototypes, even at scorching temperatures of 55 Celsius (131 Fahrenheit).
"Sodium-ion-powered energy storage systems have the potential to operate without active cooling and with much less system complexity," Kurt Kelty, GM's vice president of battery and sustainability, [5]said Tuesday in a blog post . "In large energy storage systems, that matters." Not having to cool the battery cells could lead to lower upfront costs as well as operating costs, the automaker said.
TechCrunch reports on GM's big new partnership with energy-storage startup Peak Energy to [6]develop GM's sodium-ion battery chemistry for grid-scale deployments :
> GM wouldn't share with TechCrunch how much money it is investing in this energy-storage effort. But we do know the company has committed $900 million to commercialize new battery chemistries, an investment that includes a new [7]battery-development center . .. The first GM cells are expected to enter trial production at the company's Battery Cell Development Center in 2028.
"Our next-generation sodium-ion cell development will drive energy density higher," [8]promises GM's blog post , arguing they're extending the company's battery expertise and technical infrastructure "into the electrical grid itself. If we get this right, we will not just build better batteries. We will help create a more resilient, more affordable and more flexible energy future... Every improvement we make strengthens the development stack that supports both EVs and energy storage."
"The message: GM isn't just selling cars into a stressed grid; it's supplying the batteries to stabilize it," [9]argues Fortune .
And [10]GM also announced they're augmenting their apps with an "Energy Pass" offering "seamless access to Tesla Supercharger, IONNA, Electrify America, and soon, ChargePoint and EVgo networks." Their goal is to simplify the charging experience with an app "that covers nearly 70% of all DC fast chargers in the United States, plus many Level 2 chargers, all through one app."
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/06/12/battery-breakthroughs-will-lessen-ais-demand-electricity-grid/
[2] https://fortune.com/2026/06/09/general-motors-utility-in-disguise-sodium-ion-batteries/
[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/09/gm-batteries-data-centers-energy-storage-business.html
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2026/06/09/gm-doubles-down-on-energy-business-to-serve-data-center-electricity-demand/
[5] https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/2026/jun/0609-sodium-ion-batteries-grid-scale-energy-storage.html
[6] https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/09/gm-bets-big-on-energy-storage-for-data-centers-and-the-grid/
[7] https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/05/gms-electric-future-depends-on-a-new-battery-and-this-building/
[8] https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/2026/jun/0609-sodium-ion-batteries-grid-scale-energy-storage.html
[9] https://fortune.com/2026/06/09/general-motors-utility-in-disguise-sodium-ion-batteries/
[10] https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/2026/jun/0609-meet-energy-pass.html
I dont want to waste car charge cycles (Score:2)
on the grid. Use stationary batteries that you can replace without throwing out the car with it.
Re: (Score:2)
It all depends on what the warranty is. IIRC VW limit the number of lifetime kWh you can use for this, and then the car just refuses to do it anymore.
If you don't drive the car regularly it might actually help to cycle the battery a bit regularly. Also, not all cycles are equal - 70-60-70% is not the same as 100-90-100, and not 1/6th of 80-20-80.
It also depends how much you get paid for it. The battery will probably outlast the car anyway, so it might be worth doing to extract more value from your asset.
Re: (Score:1)
No the battery will not outlast the EV unless some breakthrough in reliability.
Re: (Score:2)
> No the battery will not outlast the EV unless some breakthrough in reliability.
Have you looked at recent data on EV battery lifetimes? There have been a number of breakthroughs in reliability.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would you throw out your car if it has a dead battery but be okay with replacing a stationary battery?
Re: (Score:2)
China has you covered. [1]https://www.npr.org/2026/04/18... [npr.org]
[1] https://www.npr.org/2026/04/18/nx-s1-5788990/ev-battery-charge-long-china-nio
expectations (Score:3)
I think I would be pretty dismayed to hop in my car to head out for work in the morning and discover that it dumped half it's charge for datacenters... and that GM took profit out of that, to boot!
Re: (Score:2)
> I think I would be pretty dismayed to hop in my car to head out for work in the morning and discover that it dumped half it's charge for datacenters...
My car has a range of 300 miles, and I have a commute of ten miles. The average American car is driven about 35 miles per day. I wouldn't mind if I hopped in the car to head for work and discovered half of the range miles that I don't use had been sold.
As long as I can turn off that feature when I have a long trip scheduled the next day, I wouldn't mind buying electricity at low rates and selling it back at high rates.
> and that GM took profit out of that, to boot!
All of the discussions say that the utilities pay for the electricity they buy.
Re: (Score:2)
Today you can convert that unused capacity into longer battery life by reducing charge capacity (and you change the charge capacity for those same long trips). All you're really saying here is that you might want to profit from selling your car's lifetime to electrical utilities when they should be able to do a far better job. It's a terrible idea, but it appeals to people like you because you're easily duped with promises of profit. What should you care, once you ruin the lifetime of a car you can unloa
Re: (Score:2)
Why? Do you drive 150miles to work? My car battery is currently 30% full, well below half, and I can't be fucked going to plug it in. I'll probably do that on Tuesday. In any case, all V2G systems are user configurable. If you are dismayed it's because you yourself screwed up and set the system to allow it to discharger more than you wanted. You should go tell yourself to stand in the corner and think about what you did.
> and that GM took profit out of that, to boot!
100% of V2G setups result in the end user getting paid for electricity. The fact that a
GM is not supplying anything (Score:1)
GM is signing up its customers, who purchased these batteries from GM, to supply the grid.
Coming headline: GM shut down by the government... (Score:2)
for security reasons.
Not your batteries (Score:2)
> "The message: GM isn't just selling cars into a stressed grid; it's supplying the batteries to stabilize it," argues Fortune.
GM doesn't own/supply ANY of those batteries. They are just assuming that consumers will be willing to sign up for something and leave their vehicles connected which will impose significant additional battery wear, and risk not having the charge they want/expect when they want it. My EV is not GM nor Ford, but I probably wouldn't participate, even if paid (which would likely be
Re: (Score:2)
"As for sodium-ion, those can be as low as half the kWh for the same weight. "
And they can be higher than that as well. That is the primary challenge for the technology if it is to succeed in mobile applications. For stationary use it's not a problem.
Remember that solar companies were selling Lithium Ion into "power walls" installed into home garages, an appalling solution. What should anyone expect from an Elon Musk company? Your death is your problem, as long as he's the first trillionaire.
"My EV is n
another EditorDavid failure (Score:2)
"Battery breakthroughs will lessen AI's demand on the electricity grid,"
No it will not. AI demand on the grid will be whatever it is, and that will never lessen. Batteries may help the grid cope with that demand, but demand won't be lessened a single watt.
And we should all thank EditorDavid with leading the story with this incredibly stupid claim. It's almost as if EditorDavid doesn't know what an editor does. An editor edits stories, correcting bullshit part of the job, bullshit that EditorDavid is too
Do they have Carplay now? (Score:1)
Do they still spy on you? That's what's more interesting to me.