GM Pitches Home EV Charging As Tesla Stock Slithers Downwards

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To counter the gloom and doom over Tesla’s falling EV sales, a movement is afoot to make EV-hating conservatives buy a new Tesla, as if they could forget overnight how much they hate EVs. Good luck with that. Meanwhile, Tesla sales show no sign of picking up, Tesla stock took another dip today, and the competition has spotted a ripe opportunity to sell more EVs. That includes General Motors, which doubling down on its home EV charging pitch.

How Low Can Tesla Go?

CleanTechnica has been tracking the ups and downs of Tesla since 2008. Recently it’s been more downs than ups. You can catch up on all the old news here and scoot right on up to Monday, March 17, when Tesla stock took yet another nosedive, and notably so. Despite the economic uncertainties foisted up on markets by the dictator-adjacent Commander-in-Chief who occupies the Oval Office, stocks went up on Friday and they continued their upwards trajectory on Monday, while Tesla slid down, down, down by almost 5%.

Tesla’s under-performance against the markets parallels its recent EV sales record, which has also spiraled downwards even as global EV sales continue to rise. Last week the Commander-in-Chief himself took time out from destroying the US government to convert the White House into a QVC set, in a nakedly desperate attempt to help Tesla CEO Elon Musk sell cars.

Don’t worry, the Leader of the Free World won’t get in trouble for selling stuff on the White House lawn. Everybody knows the President is exempt from the Hatch Act. He’ll be awfully busy selling cars for the next next 3-3/4 years, though. Last week Musk also pledged to churn out twice the number of Teslas in the US. Since the libs won’t buy them any more, Trump will have to make his pitch to conservatives, who have spent the past 15 years slinging mud at the vehicle electrification movement.

GM Has A Home EV Charging Deal For You

BMW and Toyota are among the automakers making hay out of Tesla’s missteps. Both are introducing new EVs and new EV concepts to the European market to fill the EV sales gap left by Tesla. Here in the US, General Motors is among the automakers seeking an edge, and the company is focusing like a thousand points of light on forging new EV charging relationships with utilities.

If you’re thinking home EV charging and virtual power plants are in play, run right out and buy yourself a cigar. Home EV charging provides EV owners with new opportunities to participate in the emerging VPP economy, and that is where GM is aims to beat the competition to the punch.

Specifically, GM is trialing a VPP project with EV drivers in California, which is another key market in which Tesla sales have dropped in recent months, even as overall EV sales have risen. Coincidentally or not, last week the chief revenue officer of GM’s Energy branch, Aseem Kapur detailed the company’s new home EV charging promotion with the California utility PG&E, which has been rolling out a “Vehicle-to-Everything” pilot program.

Kapur cut straight to the chase, reminding GM customers they can can get up to $4,500 off the price of GM Energy bidirectional home charging equipment if they enroll in the PG&E program.

“The product experience and the value for customers does not end when a GM EV is parked,” Kapur also emphasized, which brings up a key point. Most cars spend most of their live sitting around in Park, not doing anything at all. Bidirectional charging can put them to work just standing still.

As noted by Kapur, the most immediate and valuable use case is to deploy the EV battery to run lights and other electrical equipment at home if the grid connection is lost. The virtual power plant angle kicks in when EV owners use their parked cars to supply energy to the grid during peak use periods when rates are high. They can also time-shift their charging schedule to take advantage of low off-peak rates, potentially making themselves some money on the difference.

“While giving customers the ability to use their GM EV as a back-up home generator is an incredible, practical benefit to customers, it is just the beginning of what we can do to help encourage mass EV adoption with this technology,” Kapur enthuses.

Under the pilot program, GM and PG&E anticipate collecting enough data to optimize the integration of home EV charging systems with virtual power plants. Aside from the potential for direct financial benefits to the EV owner, VPPS can help utilities avoid the cost of building new gas “peaker” plants for high-demand periods.

Spreading The Home EV Charging Message Across The US

The pilot program is available only to PG&E’s customers in Northern California, but Kapur is already looking forward to uptake on a broad scale, as energy stakeholders in other states pursue a more resilient, flexible distributed energy resources model. As GM sees it, home EV charging is of apiece with solar energy and other scalable, distributed forms of clean tech.

“With the right incentives and policies in place, programs like this one could accelerate the shift toward a more distributed energy model,” Kapur observes. “As other states explore ways to meet renewable energy targets, Vehicle-to-Home, Vehicle-to-Grid and VPP technology offer a powerful solution that can help reduce strain on power plants, enhance the use of solar energy, and give consumers more control over their energy costs in the future.”

The California pilot program is just for starters. “GM Energy is working with utilities and aggregators across the country to explore how EVs can enhance grid resilience, energy security, and ultimately EV adoption,” Kapur adds.

“As we continue to innovate and expand our bidirectional charging and energy management capabilities, we are laying the groundwork for a future where EVs are not just vehicles but vital components of a cleaner, more reliable energy system,” he concludes.

That pretty much sums it up. Trump’s order disabling EV charging stations at federal buildings was an obnoxious act of spite and a big waste of taxpayer dollars that will have a limited effect, if any, on EV sales over the long run. Trump also stabbed US automakers in the back when he unplugged the $5 billion NEVI public charging program in midstream, only not fatally. Private sector stakeholders are busy picking up the charging station slack already.

Trump or not, the EV revolution is here to stay. GM and other US automakers were here long before Trump grifted his way into the White House. They’ll be here long after he leaves, with the possible exception of Tesla.

Photo (cropped): General Motors is supporting a bidirectional home EV charging pilot project in California, with an eye on applying it to virtual power plants across the country (courtesy of GM).