Electric Vehicles Will Become A Money-Making Tool? Ouyang Minggao Points Out This Value Gap Amid Auto Industry Competition

"V2G (Vehicle-to-Grid) is an important value niche; electric vehicles will have free charging and may even become a tool for making money, with pure electric vehicles dominating the market." Previously, Ouyang Minggao, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a professor at Tsinghua University, made this statement at the 2025 TEDA Forum.

In April this year, it was reported that four national ministries and commissions announced the first batch of large-scale vehicle-to-grid interaction application pilot projects, involving nine cities including Shanghai and 30 projects. This also signifies that the large-scale application of vehicle-to-grid interaction in China has entered a substantive promotion stage.

In the context of increasingly fierce competition in the automotive industry, Ouyang Minggao's remarks have shifted the industry's focus to this overlooked track. Can this undervalued area carve out a crack in the prevailing "involution" trend within the industry?

Multiple automakers rush to ahead, making V2G a new track for technological competition.

At the recently opened IAA 2025 Munich exhibition, BMW has once again captured industry attention with a wall-mounted professional bidirectional charging and discharging station, accelerating the adoption of V2G technology in Europe and globally.

In fact, major domestic and international automakers have actively started the research, development, and implementation of V2G technology.

Among foreign brands, Nissan, as an early explorer, has already supported V2G charging and discharging applications with its Leaf model abroad; Tesla is also gradually launching pilot projects for bidirectional charging functions in some markets; the startup ChargeScape, jointly established by BMW, Honda, Ford, and Nissan, announced in July this year a collaboration with PSEG Long Island Electric Company to carry out an innovative plan, marking the first time electric vehicles are incorporated into the institution's "peak load reduction program."

In the domestic sector, BYD, leveraging its blade battery and self-developed bi-directional charging and discharging technology, has participated in grid peak-shaving demonstration projects in cities such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou. NIO is exploring an integrated model of "battery swapping, storage, charging, and discharging" through the coordination of its battery swap station network with the power grid. Other companies, such as GAC Aion, have also launched vehicles supporting V2G functionality and are working with China Southern Power Grid to promote community- and park-level applications.

Image source: TEDA Forum

"In terms of application and promotion, vehicle-to-grid interaction has a wide range of applications, with significant potential in the construction sector (building-vehicle-grid), the transportation sector (vehicle-energy-road-cloud), and in campuses," emphasized Ouyang Minggao.

According to data provided by Ouyang Minggao, the current lithium iron phosphate batteries for vehicles can generally undergo 3,000 full charge and discharge cycles before degrading to 70% capacity, with a calendar life of typically 10-15 years. Assuming a single charge range of 500 kilometers, 500 cycles would be sufficient to meet the maximum total mileage of 250,000 kilometers for a typical household car over 10-15 years. With an additional 2,500 cycles, a battery pack (rated at 70 kWh) could store up to 150,000 kWh of electricity for price arbitrage. Based on a price difference of 0.2 to 0.5 yuan per kWh, in some regions, this price difference could reach 75,000 yuan, which is already close to the price of some current cars.

At the beginning of August, GAC Haobo announced the launch of the first batch of V2G charging pile owner recruitment activities in the Guangzhou area. Haobo owners who successfully obtain the qualification to use the V2G function in the first batch can not only enjoy a subsidy of up to 4,000 yuan within six months but also receive a V2G smart bidirectional charging pile worth 850 yuan for free.

In the New Energy 3.0 era, it is necessary to overcome the bottlenecks of large-scale V2G application.

In the long run, V2G describes a broad prospect for energy integration.

Ouyang Minggao stated that starting from nationwide vehicle-to-grid interaction in cities in 2025, vehicle-to-grid interaction will gradually become an important carrier of distributed energy storage in China after 2030.

It is predicted that by 2050, the number of electric vehicles will reach at least 350 million, with an average battery capacity of 70 kWh per vehicle. This means the total onboard energy storage capacity will exceed 24 billion kWh, equivalent to China's current daily total electricity consumption. Considering travel needs, the average daily energy contribution of electric vehicles to grid dispatch could reach 14 billion kWh. The power support capacity of electric vehicles for the grid could reach 2.9 to 3.5 billion kW, approximately half of the non-fossil installed power capacity of the national grid that year.

At the same time, the coordinated and interactive development of new energy vehicles and new energy electricity is progressing. By 2030, the total installed capacity of wind and solar power is expected to reach 3 billion kW, with the generation from wind and solar power projected to be around 4.5 trillion kWh. According to predictions from the State Grid, the total electricity consumption of society in 2030 will be 13.3 trillion kWh, meaning that the share of renewable energy generation will exceed 50%.

With the large-scale development of various energy storage technologies, it is expected that starting from 2030, renewable energy consumption will begin, ushering in the New Energy 3.0 era, which will be dominated by green electricity.

As green electricity gradually becomes the main source of power consumption, electric vehicles will become the truly most energy-efficient new energy vehicles.

Image source: NIO Inc.

Despite the promising prospects, the large-scale promotion of V2G still faces numerous challenges. Currently, the scale of V2G vehicles is limited, and there is a need for unified communication protocols and discharge standards. Issues such as battery degradation and cycle life also raise concerns among some users. Meanwhile, a mature commercial model for V2G has not yet been established, and how to balance the interests of car owners, manufacturers, the power grid, and operators still requires further exploration.

It is worth noting that the proactive actions of enterprises cannot be separated from the strong support of relevant national policies. As of August 2025, according to incomplete statistics from Gasgoo Auto, a total of 15 policies related to the V2G field have been issued nationwide.

On September 12, the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on the "Work Plan for Building Guangzhou as a National Pilot City for Large-Scale Application of Vehicle Networking Interaction (2025-2027)."

It is clearly stated that by the end of 2025, the number of smart and orderly charging stations connected to the government supervision platform will reach 600, smart and orderly battery swap stations will reach 130, smart and orderly charging piles will reach 28,000, and the vehicle-to-grid interactive aggregated resources connected to the Guangzhou virtual power plant platform will reach 430,000 kilowatts. By the end of 2025, the number of V2G charging piles and V2G vehicles regularly participating in peak shaving and valley filling will both exceed 1,000, with V2G discharge volume not less than 1.5 million kilowatt-hours; the discharge volume will reach no less than 2 million kilowatt-hours in 2026 and no less than 2.5 million kilowatt-hours in 2027.

It is foreseeable that with more car companies accelerating the launch of V2G-enabled models, power grid companies increasing the procurement of adjustment resources, and continuous improvements in electricity pricing and incentive mechanisms at the national level, the "value gap of vehicle-grid interaction" predicted by Ouyang Minggao is accelerating from vision to reality.