Anyone Using Electric car as storage battery

[peakbagger]

On one of the forums there is an individual who uses a prius to run his house when the power is out. He hooks the Priius battery to a computer UPS which is specifically set up for the Prius battery voltage. I expect that the big challenge is getting a charger that will integrate with the vehicle charging system

[littleharbor]

As long as your regular evening activities don't require more than 2-300 watts. Any sizable inverter needs large cables supplying DC voltage from the battery source. Any inverter that comes with a cigarette lighter plug should be of minimum output and likely will be of minimum quality.

[santaclaws]

I was searching the forum for some news regarding battery technologies and I came up with this thread too.

Just a quick thought: what about using the car 12V socket(s) to run an inverter? This way, you're not voiding any warranty and you could suck enough energy for regular evening activities.

[DanKegel]

Maybe someday an EV could be used to store solar power but the hardware to make the circuit work is really not that common or as far as I know even available.

Oh, it's available in Japan; Nichicon sells one there called the EV Power Station (though most posts about it seem to be from 2012 and 2014).
Nissan seems to like them; they're even working with them to arrange for Nissan's hydrogen vehicle to serve as a generator to power a house, see

http://www.nichicon.co.jp/english/product_news/new145.html

It's just, well, everybody has bigger fish to fry in the US, like getting EVs adopted at all, to worry about cool other ways EVs could be used. I think.

[Sunking]

Can it be done? Yes.
Has it been done? Yes

The question is how. You have 3 issues:

1. Vehicle Warranty void.
2. Fabrication of an Interface Device to access the EV battery. Dead give away to dealer and voids your warranty.
3. Is the show stopper. Just try to find an Inverter that can use an EV high voltage of 300 to 500 volts. Good luck with that one.

Who as done it? Mostly by people who build a DIY or Custom EV. Those guys use lot lower voltages than commercial EV's in the range of 48 to 144 volts in 12 volt increments which there are many Inverters available on the market. Also no warranty issues as they use standard used vehicles as a donor car out of warranty.

[SunEagle]

Maybe someday an EV could be used to store solar power but the hardware to make the circuit work is really not that common or as far as I know even available. Although I am sure someone has an experimental system that they feel works well but may hurt the EV's overall performance and not really save any money.

[DanKegel]

Great idea, but looks like it's not mainstream yet?

See http://www.nrel.gov/transportation/p...tegration.html for a teaser on the topic that mentions some equipment.

[montreid]

Have a grid-tied 4kw PV net metered system in SoCal and driving two EV cars. With new rates coming, was thinking of adding Powerwall option.

Thinking: But how about the 30+ kw battery that's sitting in my driveway in the evenings? why can't I use that to power the house for the 3 hours 6p-9p and then turn around and charge from 12mn to 4am? Yes, it cycles out the battery deeper, but it's still cheaper than buying another set of batteries (and environmentally friendlier).

Anyone been able to do this? My non-electrician brain thinks that powerwall is just a non-mobile tesla battery. Thoughts anyone?