GM Announces Vehicle-to-Grid Technology and Energy Storage Solutions to Address AI Data Center Power Demands

At its 'GM Empower' event in San Francisco on Tuesday, General Motors unveiled a multi-pronged energy strategy centered on three pillars: vehicle-to-grid technology, new battery chemistries for stationary storage, and a unified charging software platform. GM announced it will push a firmware update to existing vehicle-to-home customers, enabling their bidirectional-capable Chevy, Cadillac, and GMC EVs to send power back to the grid; the company says its 250,000 such vehicles on U.S. roads could theoretically power 120,000 homes for up to a week. For grid-scale stationary storage, GM is partnering with California-based startup Peak Energy to develop sodium-ion (specifically sodium pyrophosphate, or NFPP) battery cells, which GM says will operate across a wider temperature range (-40°C to 60°C), require no active cooling, target 10,000–20,000 charge cycles, and be at least 20% cheaper to operate than current lithium iron phosphate systems; trial production at GM's Battery Cell Development Center is expected in 2028. GM is also expanding its partnership with Redwood Materials, deploying a 7.2 MWh second-life EV battery system at a Michigan plant projected to save $3 million over its lifetime, and will sell LFP cells to LG Energy Solution for near-term energy storage needs. The new Energy Pass app will allow GM EV owners to find, start, and pay for charging across Tesla Superchargers, Electrify America, IONNA, and eventually EVgo and ChargePoint—covering roughly 70% of U.S. DC fast chargers—through a single interface. GM is piloting V2G with PG&E in Northern California, targeting 52,000 participating vehicles by 2030, and with DTE Energy in Michigan using 30 employee homes, while GM Energy VP Wade Sheffer issued an open letter urging regulators and utilities to streamline interconnection rules and rate structures to make V2G commercially viable.