Drew Dowdell

According to Reuters, Nissan is working with two partners E.ON and EDF to develop technology and services to allow power stored in electric vehicles to be sold back to the grid at peak times. The technology is called vehicle-to-grid (V2G). In ideal situations, users charge their vehicles during off-peak energy prices and sell the energy back to the grid during times of high usage. By buying low and selling high, this would allow EV drivers to potentially have net zero charging costs. There is a benefit to energy grid operators also, it will allow the energy grid operators to smooth overall energy distribution, with the net effect of helping to stabilize the energy network. Nissan and Mitsubishi are working with French utility EDF and a V2G technology company called Nuvve to build a large scale V2G charging network in Europe for electric vehicles made by those two companies. Italy's Enel power utility is working on a similar pilot project in Denmark, Netherlands, Rome, and Genoa. Honda is planning on including V2G capability when it launches its first electric vehicle in Europe. One setback for the technology is that the German auto manufacturers who will be making the largest number of EVs and PHEVs for Europe over the next years have not yet signed on to the project. Further, complicating matters is the lack of a charging standard both among EV manufacturers but also in V2G technology. A large part of the adoption of the V2G technology will come down to changing consumer habits, something consumers can be slow to do.

Ford released details on the Ford Explorer Hybrid at the Detroit Auto Show this week, but a Plug-in Hybrid wasn't mentioned. Curiously, at the Ford stand, the sign next to the hybrid version of the Explorer mentioned it as a Plug-In. One of the engineers standing nearby told me this was a misprint, but that is a pretty serious misprint to make and then actually put on the show floor. We do know that the Explorer platform is capable of being a plug-in hybrid as its stable mate over at Lincoln, the Lincoln Aviator is getting a plug-in hybrid in its GT form. Is it likely that Ford is holding back on announcing the Ford Explorer Plug-In Hybrid just so that the Lincoln Aviator can get some traction with its version first? Sound off below.

In an email to all employees today, Elon Musk has announced that Tesla plans to layoff 7% of its staff or about 3,150 jobs. In addition to these cuts, Tesla will also retain only the most critical of contractors and temporary workers. Tesla's workforce grew by 30% last year. Musk reported that preliminary financial results for Q4-2018 show a small profit, smaller than the 4% profit reported for Q3-2018. Musk stressed that Telsa must work to get the mid-range Model-3 available in all markets by May in order to target a tiny profit for that quarter. The email was also posted to Tesla's company blog. Hat tip to reader @Cmicasa the Great for notifying us of the story.