Vehicle-to-grid charging: companies, startups and research

Ford Motor Company, BYD Company, Nissan Motor Co., Hyundai Motor Company, BMW AG and General Motors are among the companies active in V2G. Ford, BMW and Honda are associated with ChargeScape and grid-service programs. Volkswagen Group’s Elli offers bidirectional charging, while General Motors has announced V2G support for existing customers.

Fermata Energy LLC, SWTCH Energy Inc. and DG Matrix, Inc. are listed among V2G startups. Fermata connects EV batteries to the grid for grid services. SWTCH develops managed charging and energy management for urban sites, while DG Matrix builds power-router systems for microgrids and EV fleet electrification. These are examples, not a performance ranking.

Tsinghua University, North China Electric Power University and Southeast University are named research organizations in this field. Tsinghua studies coordinated charging, privacy-preserving federated learning and electric-bus scheduling. North China Electric Power University researches bus-station scheduling and secure communications, while Southeast University develops hierarchical fleet control that considers grid services and battery degradation.

Topic-associated funding records show $394,347,804 across 196 grants since 2020. They also list $13,308,166,929 across 26 funding rounds. The round records include broad organizational financing and are not necessarily dedicated to V2G, so they should not be treated as a clean measure of investment in the technology alone.

Volvo Car Corporation leads the listed patent holders with 20 patents, followed by Hyundai Motor Company with 16. Kia Motors has 9 and Kia Corporation has 7. Other listed holders include Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd, Huawei and Eaton Intelligent Power Ltd. These counts describe the patent-holder data in the topic records.

No: patent activity declined 37.1% in the last 12 months compared with the previous 12 months, although 303 patents appear in the 24-month window. Research publications moved in the opposite direction, growing 11.3% in the last 12 months. This contrast suggests continued research activity but a weaker recent patenting trend.

Volkswagen Group, General Motors and The Mobility House feature in recent commercial developments. In June 2026, Volkswagen Group’s Elli presented a bidirectional charging offer and General Motors introduced V2G support. In February 2026, The Mobility House unveiled a utility integration platform. Recent research also targets battery-aware dispatch and distribution constraints.

The main approaches are AC-coupled systems, DC-coupled systems, fleet aggregation and control, interoperability and communication, and battery-aware dispatch. AC and DC coupling differ in where power conversion occurs. Aggregation coordinates multiple vehicles, interoperability links equipment and systems, and battery-aware dispatch accounts for battery condition when scheduling grid services.

The listed applications are renewable energy integration, utility grid services, residential energy management, and commercial and public fleets. Renewable integration has 5,734 associated documents, while utility grid services has 4,694. These applications use EV charging and export to support grid flexibility, manage household energy or coordinate vehicles in fleet settings.

The United States leads the listed countries with 24,262 associated documents, followed by China with 10,382 and the United Kingdom with 8,021. Germany is also prominent with 7,745. These figures reflect the country-level document counts in the topic data and indicate activity across research, industry and related reporting.