Market Signals to Dealers for Charging Stations

[dan_meh]

UPDATE: I cleaned up the language to make it clear that we are sending market signals, not telling Ford Motor Company to install chargers.

@Ford Motor Company ,

How might we send market signals to dealerships for chargers through some kind of nomination process?

I’m aware that the dealers pay for the chargers, but I want to let them know that someone outside their market is interested in giving them money.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Here’s an example:
I want to nominate Weimar Ford in Moorefield, WV to get the market signals.

Why:
If you live in or around DC, and you want to go spend your recreation dollars in West Virginia in either Canaan Valley or Snowshoe, you run through Moorefield and all those sweet, sweet electrons traveling east to the seaboard. And at the moment, one has no way to plug into West Virginia’s money maker in West Virginia.

Furthermore, if I wanted to make a Mach-e pilgrimage to the holy site of Louisville’s EV production facility from our nation’s capital, I would hit the Moorefield Gap. The Moorefield Gap is the empty space to be filled in the Terra carta

in 2015, it was undrivable. In 2025, it has only the Moorefield Gap. In 2020, it was still bad (hat’s off to those who came before us).

Here’s the Moorefield Gap in PlugShare.

What’s in it for Weimer Ford
In a word: monopoly. While I don’t want to be gouged (I’m not crazy), I see that market dynamics are a thing. They could probably get to ROI quickly. But they probably don’t know that.

Ford’s Role
Weimer probably can’t see the need for chargers. They probably have a good read on Moorefield’s automotive needs, but they probably can’t see Northern Virginia driver’s desire to give them money - and the best kind of money: imported.

So ford could help send or direct the market signal. You can imagine a clearing house. Maybe the dealership would take you more seriously than a random phone call from a random guy who lives 100 miles away.

What a solution Could Look Like
As a quick and dirty solution, you could imagine a forum category for nominating candidates. One post per nomination. Others can comment to support the nomination.

For example , I would post a nomination for market signaling to Weimer. If others agree, they can comment to say “me too, because…” Ford can take the temperature of the nomination and point Weimer to the conversation.

A more sophisticated solution could use a point system, or route data (if I drive by Weimer all the time, I’m weighted higher. But that’s future Brian’s and future Daniel’s problem.

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[E90alex]

Contact the dealer directly. There is no “nomination” process. The dealer themselves decide if they want to pay to have one installed.

Usually the dealer ones are very lackluster in terms of charging speed and available stalls and tend to be way expensive anyways. You’re probably better off contacting one or more of the major charge networks (eg Electrify America, Ionna, Tesla, etc) and suggest a location.

 

[dan_meh]

Contact the dealer directly. There is no “nomination” process. The dealer themselves decide if they want to pay to have one installed.

Done and understood, respectively.

Done: I did contact Weimer as a single, private citizen. Their understandable reaction was, “Nice talking to you.”

Understood: I agree that the dealer is in charge of their decisions. And if I were in charge of Weimer’s decisions, and one single private citizen called me, I would say, “Nice talking to you.”

The ask here is to make something new, something of collective action that is organized to avoid “doxxing” Weimer. Let’s not all spam call Weimer (or any other dealer… don’t be evil). Let’s organize and present one market signal.

That’s the ask: how might we politely combine forces?

 

[E90alex]

They currently list ZERO EVs in their new or used inventory.

Not to make everything about politics, but unfortunately EVs have been heavily politicized and West Virginia and that county specifically is a VERY very strong conservative stronghold, and conservatives have been very vocally against EVs.

I don’t think anyone will be convincing them to install a charger anytime soon, no matter how much “data” proves that it would be needed and wanted. Even if they were forced by some external entity to install one, they would likely not keep it maintained should it fail or “mysteriously” get vandalized.

 

[ChasingCoral]

They currently list ZERO EVs in their new or used inventory.

Not to make everything about politics, but unfortunately EVs have been heavily politicized and West Virginia and that county specifically is a VERY very strong conservative stronghold, and conservatives have been very vocally against EVs.

I don’t think anyone will be convincing them to install a charger anytime soon, no matter how much “data” proves that it would be needed and wanted. Even if they were forced by some external entity to install one, they would likely not keep it maintained should it fail or “mysteriously” get vandalized.

This is all especially strange since WV EV chargers are run on WV coal.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Yeah the dealer has to pay for it, so they aren’t going to put one in unless they feel like paying.

For history, a lot of dealers balked at the requirement to install EV chargers before Ford walked that back. It would be nice if larger EV dealers had them but I don’t see it happening with the current EV economy.

 

[dan_meh]

The original ask is how might we collectively signal to dealers that we want to give them money?

I know that they pay for the chargers. I know that the might have personal beef with EVs. I know that many of us arrive here with dealership experience that leaves us down on the model.

Setting all of that aside, might we, as a group, want to tell a dealership that they have a market that was previously invisible to them?

Finally, I am starting from a generous position. I am going to assume that dealerships want to make money. I’m going to assume that their decisions about stock or advertising or anything else is only a reflection on their stock or advertising or anything else. I won’t judge the heart of a man unless he tells me what’s in it.

All that said… if you want to register a “nah, nomination is not for me,” please do. Or the opposite. Please do.

 

[Billyk24]

They currently list ZERO EVs in their new or used inventory.

Not to make everything about politics, but unfortunately EVs have been heavily politicized and West Virginia and that county specifically is a VERY very strong conservative stronghold, and conservatives have been very vocally against EVs.

I don’t think anyone will be convincing them to install a charger anytime soon, no matter how much “data” proves that it would be needed and wanted. Even if they were forced by some external entity to install one, they would likely not keep it maintained should it fail or “mysteriously” get vandalized.

The WV state put in four statecof the art DCFC locations off major interstate highways in the past 12 months meaning your post has a slant and errors.

 

[ChrisO]

The WV state put in four statecof the art DCFC locations off major interstate highways in the past 12 months meaning your post has a slant and errors.

It is a crazy world, especially right now. You have a lot of vocal people that give people the wrong impressions, especially about places they don't live in. But the reality can be quite different.

If you listened to the Texas politicians, you would believe that Texas is against any clean energy instead of the truth that they generate the most of any state.

The "media" has built false impressions of a lot of places.

As for the original question, I take it that so far no one has any ideas on how to do that. I certainly don't.

 

[Ford Motor Company]

UPDATE: I cleaned up the language to make it clear that we are sending market signals, not telling Ford Motor Company to install chargers.

@Ford Motor Company ,

How might we send market signals to dealerships for chargers through some kind of nomination process?

I’m aware that the dealers pay for the chargers, but I want to let them know that someone outside their market is interested in giving them money.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Here’s an example:
I want to nominate Weimar Ford in Moorefield, WV to get the market signals.

Why:
If you live in or around DC, and you want to go spend your recreation dollars in West Virginia in either Canaan Valley or Snowshoe, you run through Moorefield and all those sweet, sweet electrons traveling east to the seaboard. And at the moment, one has no way to plug into West Virginia’s money maker in West Virginia.

Furthermore, if I wanted to make a Mach-e pilgrimage to the holy site of Louisville’s EV production facility from our nation’s capital, I would hit the Moorefield Gap. The Moorefield Gap is the empty space to be filled in the Terra carta

in 2015, it was undrivable. In 2025, it has only the Moorefield Gap. In 2020, it was still bad (hat’s off to those who came before us).

Here’s the Moorefield Gap in PlugShare.

What’s in it for Weimer Ford
In a word: monopoly. While I don’t want to be gouged (I’m not crazy), I see that market dynamics are a thing. They could probably get to ROI quickly. But they probably don’t know that.

Ford’s Role
Weimer probably can’t see the need for chargers. They probably have a good read on Moorefield’s automotive needs, but they probably can’t see Northern Virginia driver’s desire to give them money - and the best kind of money: imported.

So ford could help send or direct the market signal. You can imagine a clearing house. Maybe the dealership would take you more seriously than a random phone call from a random guy who lives 100 miles away.

What a solution Could Look Like
As a quick and dirty solution, you could imagine a forum category for nominating candidates. One post per nomination. Others can comment to support the nomination.

For example , I would post a nomination for market signaling to Weimer. If others agree, they can comment to say “me too, because…” Ford can take the temperature of the nomination and point Weimer to the conversation.

A more sophisticated solution could use a point system, or route data (if I drive by Weimer all the time, I’m weighted higher. But that’s future Brian’s and future Daniel’s problem.

Really good question about a process or way to formally help this along. Charger installs are VERY expensive, although we have a lot of dealers coming online with theirs every month, inclduing those on the Ford Charge network.

I know @Charge_Rob may have something more insightful to add in here than me... he is the expert after all.

 

[RickMachE]

This is misguided, and a waste of time IMO. The place to direct effort would be the state of West Virginia Dept of Transportation. Before doing that @dan_meh, have you read the state's NEVI plan to see what, if anything, is targeted for that area? Did you provide input to them when they were developing the plan? https://transportation.wv.gov/highways/Planning/NEVI/Pages/default.aspx

In addition, companies like Walmart are putting charging in thousands of stores.. have you checked Pilot Flying J's site?

Until recently, West Virginia was a charging wasteland. We considered a drive through there to visit relatives that live in North Carolina back in 2023, and would have had to drive hours out of the way. We then did the drive last year through the same area, able to charge, but nowhere near as easy as taking 75 south.

 

[Jimrpa]

Done and understood, respectively.

Done: I did contact Weimer as a single, private citizen. Their understandable reaction was, “Nice talking to you.”

Understood: I agree that the dealer is in charge of their decisions. And if I were in charge of Weimer’s decisions, and one single private citizen called me, I would say, “Nice talking to you.”

The ask here is to make something new, something of collective action that is organized to avoid “doxxing” Weimer. Let’s not all spam call Weimer (or any other dealer… don’t be evil). Let’s organize and present one market signal.

That’s the ask: how might we politely combine forces?

So, I have to ask: is it possible that this gap exists for a reason? Wouldn’t charging entities (networks and automakers) have looked at this, done some kind of market demand studies, and determined that the ROI just isn’t there?

 

[E90alex]

The WV state put in four statecof the art DCFC locations off major interstate highways in the past 12 months meaning your post has a slant and errors.

I’ll admit some broad generalizations in my previous comment about the state overall, but my point about the dealer specifically still stands.

A dealer with zero EV inventory and website that doesn’t even mention or show any stock images of the Mach-E unless you really dig is very unlikely to be open to installing an DC fast charger which costs tens of thousands of dollars out of their pocket.

Not that a car dealer is the best place for DC fast charge stop anyways. Dealer chargers don’t usually have great scores on PlugShare for various reasons.

 

[geeklifer]

In my area, and most areas I've travelled so far, dealerships are the absolute worst place for a charge. I usually filter them out on plugshare/ABRP/etc to save me headache and time. They typically have a locking gate outside of their open hours. When they are open, they usually fill their EV spots with other cars, or otherwise make it nearly impossible to get to the charger. I get the sentiment and encouraging any location to have a charger is great, but dealerships are not the ideal location.

 

[ChrisO]

In my area, and most areas I've travelled so far, dealerships are the absolute worst place for a charge. I usually filter them out on plugshare/ABRP/etc to save me headache and time. They typically have a locking gate outside of their open hours. When they are open, they usually fill their EV spots with other cars, or otherwise make it nearly impossible to get to the charger. I get the sentiment and encouraging any location to have a charger is great, but dealerships are not the ideal location.

Not to mention, that they tend to use them for their own vehicles, both employee's and getting cars ready for sale.

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