Enlarge / GM recently announced home charging hardware that was capable of bidirectional charging. Today it filled in the missing piece, announcing V2H capabilities are coming to Ultium EVs. (credit: Chevrolet)

General Motors is adding capabilities to allow its new electric vehicles to send power from their batteries to the owner's home. Known as V2H, or bidirectional charging, it's a relatively simple idea: an EV is a giant battery on wheels, so why not be able to use that to power other things? GM says the rollout will begin with model-year 2024 EVs and will continue through to model-year 2026.

There are actually a couple of different approaches to using an EV's battery to power non-car stuff. An increasing number of EVs like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Volkswagen ID. Buzz offer AC outlets, and, depending on the region, can provide either 120 V or 240 V power. That is usually known as vehicle to load, or V2L.

V2H amps things up a bit—quite literally—by sending power from the car back into a home electrical circuit, similar to a home storage battery. Nissan demoed but never implemented the idea for the second-generation Leaf back in 2018 , but Ford did implement it with its F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck .

Enlarge / Race winners, the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi, and Antonio Giovinazzi arrive down the pit lane toward parc ferme at the end of the 100th anniversary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Circuit de la Sarthe on June 11, 2023, in Le Mans, France. (credit: James Moy Photography/Getty Images)

One hundred is something of an arbitrary number, an accident of how many fingers we happen to have. But in years, it represents a long time to keep doing something again and again: like the 24 Hours of Le Mans, an annual race around an 8-mile circuit in France that exists not just as a way to entertain but also to improve the cars we drive on the road. Windshield wipers, disc brakes, fuel injection, and laserbeam headlights are just a few examples that were proved in the cauldron of the 24 Hours before appearing on cars like the one you might drive.

This weekend saw the centenary edition of the race take place. Anticipation had been building for months thanks to a new ruleset that has revitalized the top class of prototypes , now called Hypercars. After several years of Toyota facing little competition by meagerly funded privateer teams, 2023's entry list also included cars from other major manufacturers—Cadillac, Ferrari, Peugeot, and Porsche.

Legends return

Each has raced at Le Mans before, the European makes with quite some success. Across 91 actual races—world wars prevented running some years—Porsche's entries notched 19 wins, more than anyone else. Audi has the next-best record, but it has opted to spend its racing budget on Formula 1 for the foreseeable future .

Enlarge / GM is the second American automaker to decide to ditch the CCS port (pictured) for Tesla's design. (credit: Cadillac)

Tesla's Supercharger network is about to get more crowded. On Thursday afternoon, General Motors CEO Mary Barra joined Tesla CEO (and Twitter's owner) Elon Musk to announce that GM is signing on to what Tesla calls the North American Charging Standard (NACS) and will integrate those ports into its electric vehicles from 2025. The move follows a similar agreement between Tesla and Ford, announced two weeks ago .

"This collaboration is a key part of our strategy and an important next step in quickly expanding access to fast chargers for our customers. Not only will it help make the transition to electric vehicles more seamless for our customers, but it could help move the industry toward a single North American charging standard," Barra said in a statement.

GM EVs will gain access to the Supercharger network of over 12,000 chargers starting in 2024. As with the Ford news, GM EVs will initially require an adapter to connect the NACS cable to their CCS1 charging ports.

Enlarge / This is the rear of the Red Bull RB19. I can't find a good photo of it with the DRS flap open, but the bit that says Oracle drops down flat, reducing the amount of drag the wing causes and increasing the car's top speed. (credit: Bryn Lennon - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Formula 1 held its annual street race in Azerbaijan this past weekend. With its very high-speed track, the city of Baku has seen some rather exciting racing. But that was not the case this year, which proved more soporific than Ambien. But at least one other race was truly entertaining this weekend, as the World Endurance Championship visited Belgium. Watching the two makes me think it's time for F1 to drop a couple of the driver assists.

Part 1: The case for banning DRS

F1's problem this year is one it often suffers from. One team has designed a better car than anyone else, and assuming that team—Red Bull Racing—stays reliable, it's almost certain to win both the drivers' and constructors' championships. It's not Red Bull's fault it did a much better job than anyone else this year, but its advantage is magnified by a techno-crutch that was added to the sport some years ago to try to increase overtaking.

It's called DRS (drag reduction system), and it was introduced in 2011 to address the problem of one F1 car not being able to follow another closely enough through a corner that it could then build up the necessary speed to overtake.