"My car earned $41 last month sitting in the driveway. It's the best tenant I've had."

Dan has no solar at all. He has an EV, a bidirectional charger in the garage, and a cheap overnight electricity plan.

The trick

The car charges overnight at the off-peak rate, and the gateway sells from it during the Austin afternoon peak, keeping a 60% reserve so he always has range for the commute.

“It’s arbitrage, basically. I buy at night, the car sells in the afternoon, and I never think about it.”

The numbers

Forty-one dollars in a month is not life-changing, but it covers most of his charging cost. In the August heatwave a single afternoon cleared at over $0.30 per kWh and paid $9 on its own.