Charge It!

I read on the Silverado EV Forum that some folks with Silverado EV RST First Edition orders had gotten their GM PowerShift Charger, a bi-directional capable, 19.2 kW level 2 home charger, delivered before they paid for or received their trucks. This charger is supposed to be a free gift from GM Energy with the purchase of a First Edition. Some people on the forum mentioned getting misdirected by their dealers to the PowerUp charger which is not bi-directional capable and that the PowerShift charger was back ordered. Don’t go through your dealership for the free charger. Go through GM Energy.

I decided I needed to get ours ordered in case there was a problem. It’s a $1700 value!  We have been talking to GM Energy and the local Qmerit installers, but the physical charger had not yet been ordered. We have some questions on installation, like: Will the truck fit in the garage? That is, do we install it inside or outside? Are we going to get the first-gen Vehicle to House (V2H) system, or wait a few months for the gen-2 system which might be better?  This was holding us up on installation. It will be good to get the hardware here and ready to go.

Last week I poked around on GM Energy website and ended up with a phone appointment for today. Will, from GM Energy, called today, from Toronto, even though it was Canada Day! 🍁 He was great. I got lots of my questions answered. He emailed me a link to order the charger for free and he put in a second request with Qmerit to give us a quote for just the charger and the whole system. 

I am happy to report, that the charger has been ordered. Will made no mention that the charger was back-ordered. If you have a First Editon Silverado EV RST and want a free charger, I urge you to get on this. Feel free to ask me questions if you need help.

A little background on V2H. The truck’s batteries can be used as backup power for the house. A Silverado EV RST’s batteries are about as big as 15.75 Tesla Powerwalls!!! To make this work, you need: 

1. A bi-directional capable vehicle
2. A bi-directional capable charger that can talk to your vehicle
3. An inverter (if your vehicle outputs AC, which most do other than Teslas)
4. A hub that automatically isolates your home from the grid in a power outage.
5. And a dark start battery. A small battery that gives power to the system when there is an outage to wake up the vehicle and get the process started. 

It’s a lot. It’s complicated and a bit expensive. It is bleeding-edge technology and we can’t wait to be a part of it! There are a lot of videos out there about how this all works. Here are two of my favorites. 

• Out of Spec Reviews – GM Home Energy
• State of Charge – Ford Lightning House Back Up  This the Ford product, but the concepts and parts are the same.