Plug & Charge Fail and the 80% Cliff is Real

[DBC]

When Tom used the Plug & Charge, it worked well. He didn’t say he needed to do anything to set it up first.

This is likely because he got a test car from Ford that already had it setup.

Many thanks to @hybrid2bev for taking the time to give such a detailed report. Very helpful.

I'm thinking that it's unlikely to be an issue on the vehicle side post setup. Possible but that should be easy to test. Just plug it in. Additionally we've been told that Ford employees used the EA network extensively, and that certainly should have identified the issue. And of course, as @OldEVGuy mentioned, there is Tom's report that it worked perfectly.

Just guessing, the issue might be that the chargers have to be updated and haven't been, or, as @JamieGeek has suggested, there is an issue with the setup. His guess seems more likely and fits the available information, but that's just a guess.

That said, worrying about the DC charging process and jumping to conclusions before you even have a car, much less need to DC charge, seems over the top. Worst case is you pay a little more for a short period of time before Ford and EA get things sorted.

The charge curve is way more interesting.

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[BlueMach]

Many thanks to @hybrid2bev for taking the time to give such a detailed report. Very helpful.

I'm thinking that it's unlikely to be an issue on the vehicle side post setup. Possible but that should be easy to test. Just plug it in. Additionally we've been told that Ford employees used the EA network extensively, and that certainly should have identified the issue. And of course, as @OldEVGuy mentioned, there is Tom's report that it worked perfectly.

Just guessing, the issue might be that the chargers have to be updated and haven't been, or, as @JamieGeek has suggested, there is an issue with the setup. His guess seems more likely and fits the available information, but that's just a guess.

That said, worrying about the DC charging process and jumping to conclusions before you even have a car, much less need to DC charge, seems over the top. Worst case is you pay a little more for a short period of time before Ford and EA get things sorted.

The charge curve is way more interesting.

The worrying thing is that the chargers hybrid2bev is using are the brand new Signet chargers that are EA's current standard, hopefully they're as up-to-date as it gets.

 

[silverelan]

The charge curve is way more interesting.

The P&C and EA+ integration is all backend software that will get sorted out, i'm sure. It's just disappointing that a year after announcing this, it isn't live and ready for production.

The DCFC charging profile is fascinating stuff. If I'm reading this right, @hybrid2bev was able to maintain 95kW+ for ~20 minutes and 110kW+ for just 4-5 minutes of that time.

 

[SnBGC]

50 kW is hardly fast lol... their minds would explode if they watched a Taycan draw 270 kW I bet.

Yes....there would be a mess to clean up for sure.

 

[SnBGC]

Correct. Plug&Charge is one of the major selling points of the Mustang Mach-E.

The membership rate is a big difference from the walk-up (or drive-up I guess lol) rate. That's a huge cost over the life of the car. I'm not OK with that, not at all.

I will not pay the $0.43/kWh rate. I have a EA Pass+ membership for a reason.

I consider not being able to use Plug&Charge at the $0.31/kWh rate a failure. Is it enough to get me to walk away from my order? Probably not on its own, but I hope we get a response from Ford on this very soon. It seems like a glaring omission, they had to have thought of that during development, right? They can't assume we all want to pay 40% more for our EA sessions.

Sounds like DCFC is your primary charge method. If so, then you may not be satisfied with your purchase. Just being honest.....

 

[ajmartineau]

To simplify your math in the future. Take the number of kWhs the car received times your miles/kWh., so in this case ~65kWh (this should be from the car, not the charger) x 3 m/kWh.
You get to drive about 195 miles for $20.15. How much will your ICE car cost to drive that distance?
For me @ $3.30/gallon and 22 mpg (I had a Forester). If I still owned my ice car, it would cost me $29.25 to go 195. If I AssuMe the MME only took 80% of that 65kWhs into the battery pack, the ICE equivalent goes to $23.40.

I understood my EA membership was included with Ford Pass for 2 years. I will not be happy if I have to have or pay for 2 memberships. My MME P&C, Ford Pass and EA app should all be on the same membership and I should see a 250kWh credit on there as some as I pick up my MME and activate/connect the two.

 

[Dan G]

I've been meaning to look and see how long the minimum membership is for. Like, are we locking into $48 for the year, or can we just pay the $4 for the 1 or 2 months we're traveling in?

You can do month to month. I've done it a few times. If you're paying the $4 a month, you need to put on about 35 kWh to break even. Depends on your billing style. (Per kWh or per min.) But one or two charges on the MME will pay for the membership.

 

[dbsb3233]

I’ve always understood it as the 43 cent rate. Ford is only providing 250 kWh free. They’ve never said it provided you a membership and neither has EA BTW. If nothing is there to indicate you get a discounted rate, fair assumption is you get the higher rate. And that makes sense when you look at how Ford has framed this the entire time, basically that FordPass will gray you access to all these chargers and you can pay through your FordPass app. I went ahead and downloaded every app I’ll need. The vaguer an entity is on details, the worse the outcome for the user.

I've seen Ford hint at it being a discounted rate, but only once have I seen it stated outright. I wish I could remember where now. I think it might have been in one of those live events they did online a few months back, but I do remember it being said because I remember remarking on it at the time with a "well it's finally confirmed". But nothing since, so maybe that was just a mistake.

It's been an open question for some time.

 

[kdryden99]

I wonder why the charge curve is the way it is? You'd figure its something that would get extra attention. Is there some fear over heat management and they tried to be conservative? I hope in the next coming months they really work on this. Efficiency wise extremely happy.

 

[available_username2]

Yeah it's not the end of the world to keep using the EA app, just a disappointment to not get to use Plug&Charge, which was honestly a huge selling point of this car. I'm just not willing to pay 40% more for the electricity to use Plug&Charge.

no part of dcfc should be a huge selling point of the car. All the details of dcfc work out to much much worse than an ICE at a gas station. If you aren't charging at home every night for 95% of your electrons then you are bound to have a bad time.

 

[dbsb3233]

As I'm not expecting to take delivery of my MME until early April, I'm hoping that some of these issues will be ironed out a bit in the next two months. At the very least, it would be good for the Ford Pass system to be optimized to the point where the vehicles are easily recognized and payment is automatic.

As far as a reliable charging infrastructure is concerned, I expect that will take a while longer. Given that Ford, GM, BMW, VW/Audi/Porsche, Mercedes, Jaguar, Volvo, and Hyundai all have a vested interest in reliable BEV charging, I expect there will be some real money invested during the next 12-18 months. It won't happen overnight, but I think we'll see some real progress by this summer/fall.

Exactly. The flurry of CCS vehicles from legacy makers (and a few new ones like Rivian) is just starting to hit. They'll step in with some partnership help if they really need to. Not sure they'll need to though.

 

[ClaudeMach-E]

Well let's take the good news I mean 12% to 80% in 45 min. at 26 deg.F /-3 deg.C is excellent and on target. Has far has the 80% plus kW rate it's a normal drop for any EV I belive. Has for the P&C stuff well let's hybrid2bev or another member try from the Ford Pass app first has that might change things has far has P&C is concern and also the free charging and or the membership price on EA. For the $0.43 pricing has you all now this price is very dependant of the state you live in, so in some it will be lower and in others you will have a price based on kW/h charge and not time. At the end here in Canada we have no network yet that offers P&C connection, we have no 250 kW free charge on any network has far has I know. So we are discovering thing and let's wait and see for more info to come.

 

[dbsb3233]

You can do month to month. I've done it a few times. If you're paying the $4 a month, you need to put on about 35 kWh to break even. Depends on your billing style. (Per kWh or per min.) But one or two charges on the MME will pay for the membership.

Yeah, for me it would just be if I'm taking it on a road trip. That's the only time I'll DCFC. And any road trip will be more than sufficient to offset the $4.

 

[dbsb3233]

I wonder why the charge curve is the way it is? You'd figure its something that would get extra attention. Is there some fear over heat management and they tried to be conservative? I hope in the next coming months they really work on this. Efficiency wise extremely happy.

I'm guessing two big factors:

(1) Dynamic management. It appears to be seriously lowering the power level accepted, presumably based on the ongoing temperature readings within the battery pack.

(2) Lack of battery conditioning. The fact that it's taking so long to "get up to speed" suggests the batteries are starting cold and taking the first 20-30% of the curve to warm up enough to accept high power.

Being winter right now sure doesn't help. I assume it'll get a lot better in the summer. Still though, kinda feels like the BEV industry as a whole has oversold capabilities by always publishing charts and numbers when the conditions are perfect, and underplaying the losses when it's not perfect (which is most of the time in the real world).

 

[FirstBEV]

Well let's take the good news I mean 12% to 80% in 45 min. at 26 deg.F /-3 deg.C is excellent and on target. Has far has the 80% plus kW rate it's a normal drop for any EV I belive.

After watching some review videos, I was worried it wouldn’t be able to charge from 10-80% in 45 minutes as claimed, especially in cold temperatures. I agree that this test is reassuring and exciting.

Yes, most battery charging rates decrease the closer it gets to full (I’ve heard an analogy of filling a bucket, you slow the speed of the water as it gets close to filling so it doesn’t overflow). I think we were just hoping for higher than 5KWh charging from 80-100%. Also, the MME extended range battery has 88 KWh usable, but the battery is actually 99 KWh (might be off by a little bit). So there’s actually a built in buffer of 11%. Some people are hoping that the fast charge rate could go until 90% of the usable charge, since that would leave a 20% buffer of the total battery capacity.

It’s not a defect of the product or a reason I wouldn’t want the car. I’m just hopeful Ford could change this in the future an OTA update.

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