Beware about charging your other EV at EA with Ford Pass on your phone

[AZBill]

If you own another EV that is not a Ford, you should read this. I have a Chevy Bolt and a Mach E, but the Bolt does not have Plug & Charge. Recently I have had 9 out of 10 failed attempts to charge my Bolt at EA stations. Because I just got a new battery in my Bolt and new BMS software, I kind of assumed it was an issue with the car, but decide to try EVGO just to prove it was the car. The Bolt charged fine at EVGO right after failing 4 times at EA. I even tried different brands of EA chargers, ABB and Signet, both were failing.

I called EA, because I finally noticed after several failed sessions that when I plugged in my Bolt it skipped all the payment screens and started initiating charging. It would then timeout with an error message. Reading the details it mentioned failure of Plug & Charge. Someone at EA figured this out within 5 minutes of my call. When I drive up to the charger with the Ford Pass app on my phone the charger thinks I am in my Mach E with P&C, so it automatically starts that process as soon as I plug in. They told me that I need to perform the swipe on the EA app first, then wait for the charger screen to ask for payment, then plug into the car. I actually had tried swiping first but then immediately plugged in, and it failed.

Of course this now brings up the issue of what would happen if you have two EVs with P&C using two apps on your phone. How confusing will that be?

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[chrisGT]

This is a hard to believe because:
1) I can use P&C without the Fordpass app installed in my phone.
2) If that was true then whenever any of us arrived at EA locations, no other car would be able to start charging. Obviously this is not the case, I have seen many other cars starting EA sessions successfully while I was around with Fordpass in my phone.

The P&C handshake is initiated when you plug in the CCS cable. I believe only the charger and the car is involved, not the phone.

You can also put your phone in airport mode and try again.

 

[Logal727]

This is a hard to believe because:
1) I can use P&C without the Fordpass app installed in my phone.
2) If that was true then whenever any of us arrived at EA locations, no other car would be able to start charging. Obviously this is not the case, I have seen many other cars starting EA sessions successfully while I was around with Fordpass in my phone.

The P&C handshake is initiated when you plug in the CCS cable. I believe only the charger and the car is involved, not the phone.

You can also put your phone in airport mode and try again.

Yeah, you’re correct, they don’t use phone location to authorize plug and charge.

 

[Motomax]

I’m not sure I buy that excuse either. How would fordpass know which stall you’re at.

 

[AZBill]

This is a hard to believe because:
1) I can use P&C without the Fordpass app installed in my phone.
2) If that was true then whenever any of us arrived at EA locations, no other car would be able to start charging. Obviously this is not the case, I have seen many other cars starting EA sessions successfully while I was around with Fordpass in my phone.

The P&C handshake is initiated when you plug in the CCS cable. I believe only the charger and the car is involved, not the phone.

You can also put your phone in airport mode and try again.

I do plan on experimenting with this, in fact my wife does not have the app on her phone and needs to be able to use P&C.

That said, I did select the setting in Ford Pass to allow sharing of the charging, maybe that needs to be off.

 

[AZBill]

I’m not sure I buy that excuse either. How would fordpass know which stall you’re at.

I do not think it is Ford Pass initiating it, it is EA recognizing that a phone with the app is in the area. This is what EA explained to me. So it assumes the next charging attempt is for a Mach E. If you start charging your Mach E and another car pulls up, it would not be affected, because the Mach E charge session is already in progress.

I am going to be talking to EA about this further. My Mach E is waiting for a new windshield, they broke mine pulling it out, otherwise I would take both cars to one EA site and try different sequences of charging the two.

 

[DevSecOps]

Ford uses Hubject in cooperation with EA. It doesn't require the phone at all. The vehicle and the equipped charging stations communicate to initiate the charge.

 

[methorian]

I don't believe this is accurate, as others have stated, how in the world would EA have any idea what charger you were actually at? This would cause a lot of issues for any other driver at the stalls as well....

This does bring up a question I've been meaning to ask. You can initiate charging at EA stations from the FordPass app, without using P&C. If you have EA credits, anyone know if you're able to use those EA credits on another EV by using the FordPass app to activate the charger before plugging in? Just curious...

 

[AZBill]

This does bring up a question I've been meaning to ask. You can initiate charging at EA stations from the FordPass app, without using P&C. If you have EA credits, anyone know if you're able to use those EA credits on another EV by using the FordPass app to activate the charger before plugging in? Just curious...

I actually tried this a couple of times with my Bolt, during these failed charging attempts. I got to the charger, was not plugged in and used the Ford Pass to activate the specific charger I wanted to use, then plugged in. It would not connect and start the charge. It seems to still think that plug & charge is active.

I did not try turning off P&C in the Ford Pass app first, I just left that setting on, but I did have the sharing selected in the app for charging. I had assumed that would allow me to charge a different vehicle with my Ford account.

I know that my Bolt did try to connect, it turns on the charging light on the dash in amber, when connecting to a fast charger. It turns on green when connecting to level 1 or 2. The amber light would come on, and then turn off when the charger timed out.

 

[methorian]

I actually tried this a couple of times with my Bolt, during these failed charging attempts. I got to the charger, was not plugged in and used the Ford Pass to activate the specific charger I wanted to use, then plugged in. It would not connect and start the charge. It seems to still think that plug & charge is active.

I did not try turning off P&C in the Ford Pass app first, I just left that setting on, but I did have the sharing selected in the app for charging. I had assumed that would allow me to charge a different vehicle with my Ford account.

I know that my Bolt did try to connect, it turns on the charging light on the dash in amber, when connecting to a fast charger. It turns on green when connecting to level 1 or 2. The amber light would come on, and then turn off when the charger timed out.

Ah. Maybe using FordPass to activate an EA charger still requires it to handshake with a Mach-E.

 

[RickMachE]

Sharing allows other authorized users to use your Blue Oval Charging network and method of payment.

It also says that if you use P& C, session will be activated when plugged in.

So, turn off P&C and then retry Bolt.

 

[AZBill]

Just as a follow up, EA does seem to know something about their software. Today I charged my Bolt just fine by swiping the EA app prior to plugging in. The charger screen told me to plug in to complete the payment. Plugged in and it started right up, without any errors.

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