Cars that cut your bill to zero? Don’t believe the hype

In the early days of the electric vehicle rollout, drivers were told that they would one day be able to turn their cars into moneymaking machines by selling excess power they did not need, writes Tom Haynes.

Vehicle-to-grid ( V2G) charging was touted as a way for consumers to offset rising energy bills by buying cheap energy during periods of low demand, storing it in their electric car’s batteries and then selling it back to the grid.

But experts have warned that selling excess energy for a profit will not be within the reach of the average owner. Sam Greenbank of the battery analytics company Accure said drivers would make meaningful savings, or even profits, only with big outlays and in very specific circumstances.

Firstly, he said you would have to be on a flexible

“time of use” electricity tariff, such as those offered by Octopus and Ovo Energy, and most people are not.

Mr Greenbank added that drivers who saved the most money through V2G did not drive frequently, which allowed their cars to stay plugged in and charging. The technology needed to make use of V2G is also expensive: the special charging point required costs thousands of pounds.

James Court of trade body EVA England said drivers should not bank on making high returns from electric cars. He said: “Anybody expecting V2G to be a moneyspinner for consumers is being misdirected.”

But Laurent Schmitt of the sustainable energy company Dcbel argued that you could “drive for free” if you were being “extremely optimistic”.

He said: “You could save about £1,000 a year from V2G, which wouldn’t be your whole energy bill but would still be a substantial amount. You would, in a way, drive for free.”