V2G, V2H and V2L — same prefix, different universe.
These three are about electricity, not information. They run over the charging cable using powerline communication, they are governed by a completely separate standards family, and they have no relationship whatsoever to the 5.9 GHz ITS radio, the ITS station architecture, or V2X PKI. The only thing they share with V2V is two characters.
We give them a page because conflating them is the most common error in V2X writing, and because a reader searching for “V2G” deserves an accurate answer rather than a redirect into cooperative ITS.
Where the power goes, and what it is for.
| Mode | What flows | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| V2G — vehicle-to-grid | Power out of the EV battery into the distribution grid | Peak shaving, frequency regulation, demand response; the battery acts as a distributed energy resource, usually via an aggregator |
| V2H — vehicle-to-home | Power out of the EV into a home electrical panel | Outage backup, peak-tariff arbitrage; requires a bidirectional charger or inverter and appropriate transfer-switch and anti-islanding behaviour under local grid code |
| V2L — vehicle-to-load | Power out of the EV into a plugged-in appliance or tool | Camping, site power, emergency use. No grid connection, no communication standard beyond the vehicle's internal control |
A different family entirely, on a different physical layer.
ISO 15118-20:2022 is the relevant one — the second-generation network and application layer requirements for vehicle-to-grid communication, adding bidirectional power transfer for both AC and DC alongside Plug and Charge with TLS-based mutual certificate authentication. ISO 15118-2 is the earlier, unidirectional generation. CHAdeMO has supported bidirectional DC since v2.0. Grid-side signalling between charger and back office typically runs over OpenADR, IEEE 2030.5 or OCPP.
The physical layer is HomePlug Green PHY powerline communication over the charging cable. Not 5.9 GHz. Not PC5.
Tesla is the most visible participant and the clearest illustration of the split.
Tesla has no 5.9 GHz V2X deployment, no V2X hardware in any shipping vehicle we could identify, and is not a member of 5GAA. It is, however, active in V2G: Cybertruck Powershare supports V2L and V2H with the Powershare Gateway; in February 2026 Tesla launched a Cybertruck V2G programme in Texas with CenterPoint Energy and Oncor, invitation-only, with bill credits during high-demand grid events; and in April 2026 PG&E integrated Cybertruck into its California V2G programme. Powershare integration with Powerwall slipped to mid-2026. The full Tesla picture →
Three real reasons, none of them technical.
The prefix. “V2” reads as a family, and in every other case on this site it is one. V2V, V2I, V2N and V2P really are variants of one architecture, sharing a radio, a message set and a PKI. V2G, V2H and V2L share none of those with them and only the naming convention with each other.
The buyer overlap. The same fleet operator evaluating a bidirectional charging programme may also be evaluating connected-vehicle safety equipment, and the same OEM is likely doing both. Two unrelated engineering programmes end up in one slide.
Both are genuinely about vehicles as network participants. An electric vehicle acting as a distributed energy resource and a vehicle acting as a cooperative sensor are both departures from the vehicle as an isolated object. The analogy is real; the shared standards are not.
One thing, and it is worth naming.
Both need a device credential that survives the vehicle's life, and both settle on certificates in tamper-resistant hardware to provide it. ISO 15118-20's Plug and Charge authenticates a charging session with mutual TLS certificates held by the vehicle, so a driver plugs in and the energy contract resolves without an app or an RFID card. That is the same architectural move as a V2X enrolment credential: an identity established at manufacture, held where firmware cannot reach it, used to obtain operational authorisation.
The hierarchies, the encodings and the operators are entirely different — Plug and Charge uses X.509 over TLS, V2X uses IEEE 1609.2 or ETSI certificates verified offline — but a vehicle designed to do both ends up with two credential lifecycles to manage, and frequently with a secure element that can host both. The device-side boundary → · Multiple isolated applets on one part →
What this site does and does not cover.
This is a V2X and ITS property. It covers the energy modes only to the extent needed to keep the terminology straight, which is what this page does. It does not cover grid interconnection, aggregator economics, tariff design, charger hardware or grid-code compliance, and it should not be used as a reference for any of them.
What it does cover, in depth, is the cooperative ITS side: what V2X is, the radio that carries it, the trust layer underneath it, and what each jurisdiction has decided.