Commercial EV builder Xos has announced V2G (Vehicle-to-Grid) production beginning in April 2026 on a major electric school bus platform in North America, and plans to add bidirectional capability to its entire product portfolio, including step vans, powertrains and energy storage solutions.
Xos will begin production this April with bidirectional charging on a school bus platform serving tens of thousands of routes across the US. Fleet vehicles entering production at this stage will be able to discharge stored energy back to the grid during peak demand events, opening a direct revenue stream for school districts and operators without requiring hardware retrofits. (This capability does not retroactively apply to existing Xos vehicles already in the field.)
By embedding bidirectional capability at the depot level, Xos enables fleets to reduce peak demand charges, defer infrastructure upgrades, and participate in utility demand response programs.
Commercial fleets present excellent use cases for V2G deployment. Vehicles follow predictable schedules, and return to a central depot each night. In particular, school buses typically sit idle outside of morning and afternoon routes, so stored energy can be made available to the grid for extended periods without affecting daily operations.
“V2G is a fundamental shift in how commercial fleets create value,” said Dakota Semler, CEO of Xos. “Starting with one of the most widely deployed vehicle platforms in America and extending across our full product catalog, we are turning new Xos-powered depots into a grid asset. With production beginning this April, we’re delivering the ability to generate revenue, cut peak demand costs, and strengthen community energy resilience without adding complexity to daily operations.”
“The engineering challenge with V2G at commercial scale is not just bidirectional hardware. It is building the capability to manage energy flow across vehicles and sites without disrupting daily operations,” said Saleh Heydari, Chief Technology Officer of Xos. “We designed this to handle predictive scheduling, depot-level coordination, and utility integration, making V2G operationally seamless and financially meaningful from day one.”
Source: Xos
