February 3, 2026
This edition of V2G News features our second industry leader interview, part of an ongoing series that brings firsthand insight into the strategies, challenges, and breakthroughs shaping V2G adoption. We welcome suggestions for future interviewees. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with Steve if there are leaders you would like to see featured.
Introduction
V2G News sat down with Russell Vare, Vice President of Vehicle Grid Integration, North America, at The Mobility House, to discuss the company’s role in scaling managed charging and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) solutions for fleets, the lessons learned from more than a decade of V2G pilots, and what it will take to move bidirectional charging from demonstration projects to durable market offerings in the U.S.
Vare has been working at the intersection of electric vehicles and the grid for more than two decades. His career spans automakers, aggregators, and early V2G pioneers, with hands-on experience across vehicle-to-home (V2H), second-life batteries, and large-scale fleet V2G deployments. In his current role, he leads The Mobility House’s vehicle-grid integration strategy in North America, working at the intersection of fleets, utilities, and grid services.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q&A With The Mobility House’s Russell Vare
Q: V2G News
To start, could you describe your professional background and your current role at The Mobility House?
A: Russell Vare
I’ve been working on vehicle-grid integration topics for quite a while now. I first got into this space in graduate school around 2003, focusing on alternative fuels. In 2010, I joined Nissan during the launch of the LEAF, and that’s really where my work on batteries, second-life applications, and vehicle-to-grid began in earnest.
After the 2011 tsunami in Japan, Nissan became very focused on vehicle-to-home applications, and we explored how those concepts could translate to North America. That work led to what was effectively Nissan’s first V2G pilot in the U.S., working with the Department of Defense and Southern California Edison at the Los Angeles Air Force Base in 2012. We were also doing early demonstrations at the time, including powering a concert in Los Angeles in 2015, just to show the concept of bidirectional charging in action.
From there, I moved to Mercedes-Benz, where I worked on stationary energy storage, and then made the transition from automakers to aggregators. In 2018, I joined Nuvve and worked on many of their early V2G school bus pilots with utilities like SDG&E, Con Edison, and Florida Power & Light. After that, I spent time with another aggregator based in the UK that was leading V2G pilots there and working closely with automakers entering the U.S. market.
I joined The Mobility House in 2024 to lead their energy services business in North America. My role has been focused on bringing what the company has successfully deployed in Europe around grid services into the North American context, particularly around managed charging and vehicle-to-grid for fleets.
Q: V2G News
For readers who may be less familiar, how do you describe The Mobility House’s role in the vehicle-grid integration ecosystem?
A: Russell Vare
At its core, The Mobility House is a software company and an aggregator. Our role in the vehicle-grid integration ecosystem is to provide the software layer that connects vehicles and charging infrastructure to the grid, enabling aggregation and optimization so those assets can deliver value.
Globally, we’ve been involved in vehicle-to-grid pilots for many years, starting with early Nissan LEAF deployments in markets such as the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, and Singapore. In Europe, that work has evolved beyond pilots toward commercial offerings, including programs that translate bidirectional charging into direct customer benefits rather than purely technical demonstrations.
In the United States, The Mobility House’s business over the past seven years has been centered on fleet charge management. Our customer base includes transit agencies, school bus fleets, and last-mile delivery operators. Today, our software is deployed at more than 100 fleet depots across the U.S. and Canada, primarily managing high-power DC charging at sites that can involve megawatts of load. That existing fleet footprint has been the foundation for our more recent work on integrating bidirectional charging and vehicle-to-grid capabilities into real-world fleet operations.
Q: V2G News
Just last week, The Mobility House announced the launch of a new product called Cascade EV Aggregator. Can you tell us more about this new product and what gap in the market it fills?
A: Russell Vare
The Cascade Aggregator enables electric utilities to manage bidirectional EV charging across many sites as a V2G virtual power plant. Cascade is unique in the V2G space because it can optimize both residential home charging and school buses. Our cloud software optimizes and aggregates. The optimization creates new load flexibility while still meeting customer driving needs. We then aggregate EVs into a coordinated resource that is valuable to the grid. From the utility perspective, we can provide various grid services. For fleets, the aggregator can unlock new value by providing access to programs like demand response and dynamic rates.
Q: V2G News
Can you describe some of The Mobility House’s real-world project experience with bidirectional charging and V2G, particularly in North America, and what those projects have been designed to demonstrate?
A: Russell Vare
In North America, our bidirectional work has been focused primarily on fleets, especially school buses. We have several grant-funded projects that are now in deployment or early operation, and those projects are really about moving beyond proof-of-concept and into learning what it takes to deploy these systems in the real world.
One example is a California Energy Commission–funded project with the Fremont Unified School District in the East Bay, where we’re supporting bidirectional charging for an electric school bus fleet. The first phase of that project is now operational, with bidirectional chargers enabled to participate in PG&E’s Emergency Load Reduction Program, allowing energy discharged from bus batteries to support grid resilience during critical events. We also have a bidirectional school bus project with Con Edison in New York that is focused on providing grid support during the summer months.
Another important project for us is the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center V2X Demonstration Program. That project is unique because it spans residential, commercial vehicles, and school buses, and it operates across multiple utility territories. From our perspective, it’s less about demonstrating that bidirectional charging works, which we already know, and more about understanding deployment challenges, interconnection, interoperability, and how these systems perform across different use cases and regulatory environments.
Collectively, these projects are helping us, and the broader industry, understand what needs to change to move from isolated pilots to repeatable, scalable deployments.
Q: V2G News
The Mobility House has worked extensively on both managed charging and V2G. How do you think about the relationship between those two approaches?
A: Russell Vare
It really depends on the customer segment. For fleets, managed charging is usually about solving very practical problems: reducing electricity bills, avoiding demand charges, and dealing with grid capacity constraints. A lot of fleet customers are using managed charging simply to get projects built faster by optimizing around the capacity they already have.
When you look at V1G versus V2G, I often compare it to the difference between a thermostat and a residential battery. Managed charging is simpler to deploy and can reach many customers, but it delivers a different kind of value than bidirectional charging, where you can actually discharge energy back to the grid. With V2G, you’re unlocking significantly more value, but only when the regulatory and interconnection permissions are in place.
I think managed charging should really be a baseline capability. V2G then becomes something you layer on where the opportunity exists. That said, I also think it’s hard to scale utility programs around V1G alone. At large scale, managed charging probably needs to be embedded in rates rather than programs. V2G, on the other hand, is likely to remain more programmatic, at least in the U.S., because of how our markets are structured.
Q: V2G News
You’ve been directly involved in many V2G pilots. What have you learned about what it takes to move from pilots to repeatable deployment?
A: Russell Vare
There are a few key dimensions: cost, technology, and regulation.
From a cost perspective, bidirectional systems are still expensive. Prices have come down significantly over the last decade, but cost remains one of the biggest barriers to scaling.
On the technical side, reliability has improved dramatically. Early pilots were working with prototype vehicles and chargers that were far from dependable. That’s largely been addressed. The next big technical challenge is interoperability. We’re seeing progress, but it’s uneven, and interoperability is essential if we want scale.
On the regulatory side, compensation and interconnection are still major hurdles. Net energy metering becomes very complex once you introduce bidirectional EVs, and utilities and authorities having jurisdiction are still figuring out how to treat these assets. None of this is unsolvable, but it does create friction today.
Q: V2G News
How would you assess the maturity of bidirectional charging technology across different vehicle segments?
A: Russell Vare
One of the most interesting things about the Massachusetts V2X program is that it spans residential, commercial, and school buses across multiple utility territories. That’s given us a really good window into technology readiness.
School buses are actually surprisingly mature. There are multiple electric school bus models with bidirectional capability, multiple certified chargers, and growing adoption of standards like ISO 15118-20. From a technology standpoint, that segment is fairly well developed.
Medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles are much earlier. There are very limited bidirectional options available today.
On the residential side, there’s a lot of activity, but it’s still early. Many solutions are tied to specific vehicle–charger pairings, interoperability is limited, and the market is still navigating CCS and NAC connector transitions. That said, even within the past year, we’ve seen a noticeable increase in the number of bidirectional-capable vehicles and products coming to market.
Q: V2G News
How do the European and North American markets for V2G compare?
A: Russell Vare
Europe generally feels three to five years ahead of the U.S. when it comes to EVs, and that’s true for bidirectional charging as well. One major difference is market structure. In Europe, assets often have more direct access to transparent wholesale markets, which makes monetization clearer and reduces the need for special programs.
We’re also seeing AC bidirectional charging operating commercially in Europe today. That doesn’t mean DC isn’t important; both are being pursued, but AC interconnection is already a reality in some markets. In addition, automakers often introduce bidirectional-capable models in Europe before North America, so there are simply more options available.
Q: V2G News
What are you seeing today in terms of customer interest in V2G in the U.S.?
A: Russell Vare
It’s still niche, and there’s a lot of education required. In the school bus segment, most stakeholders are at least aware that V2G exists, even if the value proposition isn’t always clear yet.
One interesting shift we’re seeing is that bidirectional chargers are sometimes being included in fleet projects without a dedicated V2G pilot attached. Instead of being a standalone demonstration, bidirectional capability is becoming a small part of a larger charging deployment, essentially future-proofing the site. That’s a meaningful change from how V2G has historically been deployed.
Q: V2G News
What do you think it will take to scale V2G into a durable market?
A: Russell Vare
I think it’s important to distinguish between bidirectional charging broadly and V2G specifically. Bidirectional charging will likely scale across many use cases, backup power, vehicle-to-home, and off-grid applications, somewhat independently of V2G.
For V2G itself, the key is proving the business case. Many of the technical questions that dominated this space 10 or 15 years ago, battery degradation, automaker interest, basic feasibility, have largely been answered. What remains is economics. Customers want to see clear, repeatable value.
In Europe, open and transparent markets provide long-term revenue signals that make investment easier. In the U.S., revenue streams are often tied to time-limited programs. Creating more consistent and predictable compensation mechanisms will be essential for scaling.
Q: V2G News
Looking five years ahead, how do you see this market evolving?
A: Russell Vare
In five years, I expect every major passenger car manufacturer to offer at least one model with bidirectional capability. I also think residential applications will increasingly move toward AC-based solutions.
On the fleet side, I expect V2G to expand beyond school buses into other commercial segments, particularly last-mile delivery. Over time, those commercial use cases may surpass school buses in terms of scale.
I’m also excited about vehicle classes that don’t get much attention today, things like RVs, boats, or seasonal vehicles that sit idle for long periods. Those assets could be very well suited to grid services in the future.
Q: V2G News
Any final thoughts for V2G News readers?
A: Russell Vare
One of the most important things to recognize is that EVs are a unique grid asset. They’re often the largest flexible load a customer has, and potentially the most flexible. As we electrify more vehicle types, we’re going to discover new resource opportunities that we haven’t fully appreciated yet.
The challenge, and the opportunity, is building systems, markets, and software that can unlock that flexibility in a way that works for customers, utilities, and the grid.
