Bidirectional charging sounds like one technology, but in Australia it is two very different propositions right now. Vehicle-to-load (V2L) — running appliances straight off the car's battery — already works on dozens of models on sale here. Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) export is real and growing fast, but it is largely still trials, early offers and paperwork.
If you remember one thing: a "bidirectional ready" badge is not a working feature. Between the car and your switchboard usually sit a certified bidirectional charger, your electricity distributor's approval and a retailer set-up that manages exports — and for most cars today, at least one of those pieces is still missing.
V2L and V2G are different things
V2L means plugging an appliance into the car itself, either through a three-pin socket inside the cabin or an adaptor fitted to the external charge port, so the high-voltage battery can power things such as fridges, laptops, power tools and camping gear — RACV's explainer walks through the basics (racv.com.au). Outputs on cars sold here tend to sit between roughly 1.5kW and 3.6kW at peak, and peak output is often not sustainable for more than a few minutes at a time; for scale, a typical kettle can draw around 1,200 to 1,500 watts while it boils, while a fridge or laptop is easy work.
V2G and V2H are a step beyond. Instead of one appliance, the car feeds a home's electrical system (vehicle-to-home) or pushes energy back into the electricity network (vehicle-to-grid), and that requires a heavier-duty bidirectional charger connected at the charge port, not the small hardware built into the car for V2L — the distinction RACV draws with input from Mitsubishi Motors Australia (racv.com.au). That single difference explains why one capability is everywhere and the other is still finding its feet.
Cars with V2L you can buy in Australia (as at mid-2026)
Model lists in this space date quickly, so treat everything here as a snapshot rather than a promise, and confirm the exact variant before you buy. RACV's October 2024 round-up listed, among others, the BYD Dolphin (2.2kW), MG4 (2.2kW), MG ZS EV (2.2kW), BYD Atto 3 (2.4kW), Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross PHEV (1.5kW), Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (1.5kW), Hyundai Kona Electric (3kW), Hyundai Ioniq 5 (3.6kW), Ioniq 6 (3.6kW), Kia Niro EV (3.6kW), Kia EV6 (3.6kW), Kia EV9 (3.6kW) and the Genesis GV60, GV70 and G80 (3.6kW) (racv.com.au).
By February 2026, EV retailer and review site Zecar counted around 54 models on sale locally offering V2L, adding cars such as the BYD Seal (3.3kW adaptor), Geely EX5 (3.3kW V2L plus 6kW vehicle-to-vehicle output), Chery Omoda E5 (3.3kW), XPeng G6 (3.3kW), Zeekr X (3kW) and Leapmotor C10 (1.7kW) (zecar.com). Newer arrivals keep the list moving: both grades of the facelifted 2026 BYD Atto 3 Evo carry 3.3kW V2L functionality according to RACV's August 2026 pricing and specs story (racv.com.au), and third-party specification sites list vehicle-to-load among the MGS5 EV's features — although MG's own Australian page does not spell it out, so it is worth confirming with a dealer (thebeep.com.au).
Two caveats worth knowing. First, equipment can vary by grade: on the Kia EV9, for instance, interior V2L comes on Air and Earth variants while the external-adaptor route is reserved for the GT-Line, per Zecar's summary of the official specifications (zecar.com). Second, the adaptor itself is not always in the boot — Hyundai's V2L connector was priced at $595 as an accessory in RACV's October 2024 guide (racv.com.au). And the notable hold-out remains Tesla: RACV notes it does not currently offer V2L on its EVs in Australia, although some aftermarket providers have developed adaptors, and a promised move on bidirectional charging has still not materialised (racv.com.au).
What V2G actually looks like on the ground right now
The clearest signal of where V2G stands came on 29 May 2026, when the Australian Renewable Energy Agency announced an additional $13.6 million for retailer Amber Electric's vehicle-to-grid project, taking total funding to $16.8 million and expanding participating V2G households from 50 to 1,000 alongside growth in smart-charging homes from 950 to 2,000 — with global car makers, starting with BYD, brought in to implement two-way charging standards and address battery-warranty concerns through real-world testing (arena.gov.au). On the retailer side, Amber says nearly 6,000 Australians had joined its V2G waitlist, a commercial product was planned for 2026, and early participants produced headline results the company cites — including a South Australian customer who reportedly earned $500 exporting during a summer heatwave afternoon, and a Victorian household that eliminated its EV's energy costs and banked a further $1,200 over twelve months (amber.com.au). Those figures are the company's own reported examples, so read them as illustrations of what the technology can do rather than guaranteed returns.
Earlier groundwork matters too, partly because it shows what "trial" means. The Jemena-led EV Grid trial, run from April 2022 to April 2023 across Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT with four other networks (AusNet, United Energy, TasNetworks and Evoenergy), JET Charge and ARENA co-funding, put smart chargers in 170 homes — but it tested managed charging, where networks adjust charging times, not export back to the grid (jemena.com.au). Its results were encouraging for the ecosystem: 76 per cent of participants said they would buy a smart charger, 74 per cent preferred managed charging over convenience charging, and 97 per cent would join a future trial.
A handful of cars could already do genuine V2G with the right charger — the Nissan Leaf can discharge at up to 7kW through a compatible bidirectional unit, and the Mitsubishi Outlander and Eclipse Cross PHEVs use CHAdeMO for the same trick — but Zecar notes that outside organised trials, V2H/V2G had not been approved for wide-scale use by most energy networks (zecar.com). Mitsubishi's own current Australian Outlander Plug-in Hybrid EV page lists "Vehicle To Grid Ready" among its key features, with bi-directional charging ability flagged as requiring an approved bi-directional EVSE that is sold separately from the car (mitsubishi-motors.com.au). Looking further ahead, RACV points to ARENA's national roadmap estimating around 300,000 V2G-capable EVs on Australian roads by 2030 (racv.com.au).
The standards shift that opened the door
For years the bottleneck was not the cars, it was the rules. Up until recently, bidirectional home setups needed individual distributor approvals and there was effectively just one bidirectional charger available with conditional approval — and it is no longer in production, RACV recounts; a November 2024 update to the relevant Australian Standard then let the Clean Energy Council begin adding new V2G/V2H chargers to its approved products database (racv.com.au).
That update is AS/NZS 4777.2:2020 Amendment 2:2024, published by Standards Australia on 23 August 2024 and in effect since 23 August 2025 after a twelve-month transition, bringing new clauses specifically for electric vehicle supply equipment, according to the Clean Energy Council (cleanenergycouncil.org.au). The amendment allows for mode 3 and mode 4 bidirectional charging: mode 4 covers wall-mounted units with their own inverter, which fall under the standard — and the Clean Energy Council's approved inverter list — where they connect to the grid, while mode 3, where the inverter lives in the car, was still being worked through for listing purposes. Plug-wise, the old regime centred on CHAdeMO-equipped Japanese models such as the Nissan Leaf and the Mitsubishi PHEVs, while the updated framework accommodates both CHAdeMO and CCS2, the plug now dominant on new EVs (racv.com.au).
Distributors, retailers and warranties: the last mile
Certification is only part of the journey. Any grid-connected installation still needs to satisfy the local electricity distributor's requirements, and manufacturers of compliant chargers are progressively working through those network-level settings as products come to market (racv.com.au). Then there is the commercial layer: someone has to operate the charging and discharging around prices, and offerings differ — Amber, for example, positions its platform as connecting the car directly to wholesale electricity prices rather than trading control for a fixed tariff, in the company's own description of its approach (amber.com.au).
Warranties are the quiet dealbreaker RACV flags: brands will need to support the software, and how far importers will commit to enabling bidirectional features in Australia remains unknown (racv.com.au). It is telling that ARENA framed part of the Amber expansion as being about giving manufacturers confidence through validated approaches to battery use and warranties (arena.gov.au). There is also a genuine technical trade-off to weigh: drawing on the pack regularly adds cycles, and RACV notes more frequent charge/discharge cycling may accelerate battery degradation over time depending on chemistry and system management (racv.com.au) — our separate guide to EV battery health and degradation goes deeper on what that means for a used buy.
A buyer's checklist before you count on either
- Confirm the variant, not just the model. Equipment varies by grade and model year — the Kia EV9's internal-versus-external V2L split is a live example (zecar.com).
- Ask what comes in the box. Adaptors can be optional extras, as Hyundai's $595 V2L connector showed (racv.com.au).
- Treat "V2G ready" as hardware, not a service. Exporting needs an approved bidirectional charger, distributor sign-off and a retailer program — pieces that are only now assembling (racv.com.au).
- Check the charger against the Clean Energy Council's listings for anything bidirectional that connects to the grid (cleanenergycouncil.org.au).
- Read the battery warranty fine print before planning a life of daily exports, and factor possible accelerated degradation into your thinking (racv.com.au).
What this means when you're shopping on MotorLoop
If backup power for camping, blackouts or tools is on your wishlist, V2L is a feature you can shop for today — and on a used EV it costs nothing extra beyond checking the right grade and asking whether the original owner kept the adaptor. Browse the electric cars currently listed on MotorLoop and add "does it have V2L, and is the adaptor included?" to your seller questions alongside range and charging history (motorloop.com.au). V2G, meanwhile, is best treated as a potential bonus rather than a buying reason for now: the trials scaling up through 2026 suggest it is coming, but few buyers today can act on it.
Related
- Buying a used electric car: what to check before you commit (motorloop.com.au)
- EV battery health and degradation explained (motorloop.com.au)
- Charging an electric car at home (motorloop.com.au)