Electric vehicles create problems for the grid. Could they also help solve them?

As we head into 2026, electricity grids aren’t just under strain; they are facing transformational change because of the shifts in the ways that we work, entertain ourselves, and get around. EVs are one of the fastest-growing new loads on the grid in many parts of the world, but are also one of the least well-understood. They can exhibit flexibility that’s mostly going unused today. Millions of EVs are already connected to the grid, and they’re being treated as a problem instead of a solution. So how could they be used to ease that strain on electricity grids? What would it look like if we could turn EVs into really useful distributed energy resources (DERs)?

Host Ed Crooks welcomes Apoorv Bhargava to the show for the first time. Apoorv is the CEO and co-founder of WeaveGrid, a company aiming to make EVs and other DERs function like dependable infrastructure for distribution grids. It wants provide utilities with trusted, repeatable, edge-level control of assets, rather than occasional, system-level demand response. Apoorv explains how it all works.

Apoorv is a former student of regular guest Amy Myers Jaffe, who now teaches at New York University. She joins the show to argue that there is still a great deal of uncertainty around claims of using flexibility to reinforce. It isn’t a black-and-white question, she says: flexibility only works when it’s engineered, trusted and planned for at the distribution level, not improvised through emergency demand response.

Together Ed, Apoorv and Amy debate how EVs and grids might be able to work together in the future, instead of against each other. They discuss consumer behaviour, politics and concerns over rising power bills as factors that will matter just as much as the evolution of the technology. The biggest grid upgrade opportunity may not be new wires, transformers or even power plants: it could be the Tesla, VW or BYD in your driveway.