New EV Mandate: All Cars Must Power Your Home by 2029; FEMA Plans Get a Power Boost

The “Bidirectional Electric Vehicle Charging Act of 2025” is basically a regulatory push to make your next electric vehicle (EV) double as a giant, high-tech battery pack for your home or the power grid. This bill sets the stage for Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) and Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) technology to become the standard, not the exception. The biggest headline here is the mandate: starting with model year 2029, all new light-duty vehicles and school buses must be manufactured with bidirectional charging capability, meaning they can both take power in and push power out (SEC. 3).

The National Roadmap: Planning the Power Play

Before the manufacturing mandate kicks in, the Secretary of Energy is tasked with drafting a “National Electric Vehicle Bidirectional Charging Roadmap” within 12 months. Think of this as the government’s master plan for how we’re going to integrate millions of mobile batteries into our energy system. This roadmap has to detail the strategy, timelines, and—most importantly—cost estimates for slow, moderate, and fast implementation of this technology. This is the part where industry and regulators figure out how to make sure the tech works across all brands and models (SEC. 2).

The 2029 Mandate: What It Means for Your Wallet

This is where the rubber meets the road for consumers and manufacturers. By model year 2029, if you buy a new EV sedan, SUV, or even a school bus, it must be able to send power back out. To ensure this works seamlessly, the Secretary of Energy must first issue regulations within two years to establish technical standards, ensuring a Ford can talk to a Tesla charger, and both can talk to the grid (SEC. 3). For manufacturers, this is a huge, expensive lift requiring significant R&D, and those compliance costs are often passed straight to the buyer. While the bill allows the Secretary to grant “appropriate exemptions,” the criteria for those exemptions aren't defined, which adds a layer of regulatory uncertainty for the industry.

The Penalty Box for Non-Compliance

To ensure manufacturers take the 2029 deadline seriously, the bill includes steep penalties for violations of the new standards. Failing to comply can result in a civil penalty of up to $21,000 per violation, with a maximum total penalty of $105 million for a related series of violations. For the average person, this just means the government isn't messing around with the mandate. However, the Secretary of Energy has the discretion to reduce these penalties based on factors like the size of the business and potential for “undue economic harm,” which gives the Department a lot of leverage in enforcement (SEC. 3).

Disaster Prep Gets a Power Boost

One of the most practical and immediate benefits of this bill is found in the disaster preparedness section. The bill requires FEMA to update regulations so that state and local hazard mitigation plans must incorporate bidirectional charging capabilities (SEC. 4). This means that during a major power outage—say, after a hurricane or wildfire—your EV isn't just a hunk of metal; it’s a planned, mobile power source that can be used to run emergency shelters, hospitals, or even your own refrigerator. This provision formally integrates the burgeoning EV fleet into our national resilience strategy, turning a private asset into a public safety tool.