Adventures at the Electrify America Station

crownmountain

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First I must say that the phone support person for Electrify America was great. An example for all phone support people. What happened is the same as I have seen in nearly all the YouTube videos like "State of Charge".

Went to the EA charge station in Raleigh NC at Parkway and Glenwood. Plugged in to a CCS (150kw) fast charger and the station immediately faulted. Moved to another and it started but at only 22 and up to 24 Kw. The plug and charge worked as advertised. Moved to a third charger, connected charge hit 124kw and after a minute the station stopped and said I was done. So then I called the support number. The agent looked at all 8 chargers moved me to another one. Started hit 125kw and then a minute later the charge said thanks your done and stopped. No fault was indicated the last 2 times on the station or the car. The agent then rebooted the station. I connected started the charge and the station immediately faulted and made the connector unavailable. Still on the phone we then moved to another charger. Plugged in got connected and then had joy at 84kw until my Mache-E hit 80%. Charge dropped as expected to like 12kw and I initiated a disconnect and ended the charge.

Went home and decided to plug my Ford provided charge to a 120vac outlet (my 240vac situation is a work in process). Left it connected for about 17 hours and got 16% more charge for my patience. Started at 79% charge.

A few days later I went to check on an order for some accessories at my Ford Dealer (Cross Roads Ford Wake Forest NC, ask for Rodney) and had been told when at the dealer I was welcome to plug in if I wanted while there. So I did. Had an hours worth of conference calls so I stayed at the dealer plugged in. It was an older charge and no idea of the AMPS. However it increased my battery from 5% ADDING 13 MILES.

What did I learn?
  • The public charging network needs work and for now patience.
  • 120VAC charging is only good if you use the car once a week for shopping; really pointless I say. And I need to get my home charging set up done ASAP.
  • And the charging logs in the FordPass app are handy for tracking use. Especially a led foot like me that is getting about 2.6 kw per mile. Although a few times it hit 3.1 kwh/mile.
  • If your at a public charger and you find you must disconnect and reconnect wait at least 90 seconds before reconnecting or it will increase the chance of a fault.
Ford Mustang Mach-E Adventures at the Electrify America Station 681B2C22-432B-4F37-AA49-88293014A914_1_105_c
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timbop

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The lesson you missed on here: P&C is erratic, and to avoid frustration for now avoid P&C. It will get fixed, but isn't yet. So, disable P&C and initiate the charge session through the APP for now. You still can get charger errors from time to time, but your error rate will go down significantly and it shouldn't drop the session in mid charge.
 
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crownmountain

crownmountain

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The lesson you missed on here: P&C is erratic, and to avoid frustration for now avoid P&C. It will get fixed, but isn't yet. So, disable P&C and initiate the charge session through the APP for now. You still can get charger errors from time to time, but your error rate will go down significantly and it shouldn't drop the session in mid charge.
Thanks. Is there an identified cause? Those stations are Windows based and they should have logging on so the events can be evaluated, I would hope.
 

timbop

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Thanks. Is there an identified cause? Those stations are Windows based and they should have logging on so the events can be evaluated, I would hope.
Not yet, but there are lots of charging and road trip threads in which it has been discussed. Scuttlebutt is that Ford is aware of the issue at the highest levels and working on it.

FYI there are Ford employees on the forum, including engineers.
 

GoGoGadgetMachE

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  • 120VAC charging is only good if you use the car once a week for shopping; really pointless I say. And I need to get my home charging set up done ASAP.
generally yes, but there are edge cases. when travel was a thing, and I was flying constantly, I'd park at an off-airport lot because they had 120V outlets for free charging, but you had to bring your own charger. I'd park my Fusion there and use my mobile charger. Even 2-3 miles an hour adds up if the car is there for days at a time. ;)

similarly, if you have a 120V outlet at your office and can't get them to install a charger, you could get 25 miles or so in a day, which might be enough to cover you, depending on how far from work you are... if you can do 120V at home and at work, even better.

again these are edge cases for sure. but not completely pointless ;)

and yes you want 240V charging at home :)
 


balthisar

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So, disable P&C and initiate the charge session through the APP for now.
I've done this, and I have this nagging doubt that it's actually a disservice, because we need these failures to be logged in order for anyone to take notice of them. On the other hand, I just want to charge and be on my way.
 

timbop

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I've done this, and I have this nagging doubt that it's actually a disservice, because we need these failures to be logged in order for anyone to take notice of them. On the other hand, I just want to charge and be on my way.
I GUARANTEE YOU THAT FORD IS NOT ONLY AWARE OF IT, BUT WORKING TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEM.

Do yourself a favor and disable P&C for now.
 
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crownmountain

crownmountain

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generally yes, but there are edge cases. when travel was a thing, and I was flying constantly, I'd park at an off-airport lot because they had 120V outlets for free charging, but you had to bring your own charger. I'd park my Fusion there and use my mobile charger. Even 2-3 miles an hour adds up if the car is there for days at a time. ;)

similarly, if you have a 120V outlet at your office and can't get them to install a charger, you could get 25 miles or so in a day, which might be enough to cover you, depending on how far from work you are... if you can do 120V at home and at work, even better.

again these are edge cases for sure. but not completely pointless ;)

and yes you want 240V charging at home :)
You Make some solid points.
 
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crownmountain

crownmountain

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I GUARANTEE YOU THAT FORD IS NOT ONLY AWARE OF IT, BUT WORKING TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEM.

Do yourself a favor and disable P&C for now.
Done, will give it a try.
 

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Done, will give it a try.
The other suggestion is to select the charger in the EA app and initiate charging before you plug in. This could be like chanting with no real basis. However, @eastern refugee was encountering issues with EA chargers until an EA customer service person gave him the advice to use the charger this way, and afterwards he didn't have any issues.
 

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I have no pony in this race. There are no EA chargers here and no plans to put any in -- ever.


As I see it though, P&C is a convenience, nothing more. It may be far more dependable if we're activating the charges from an app, such as EA, FordPass, Greenlots, etc than if we try to jump through hoops getting P&C to work. In the case of FordPass, doing so might also allow far easier access to your free 250 kWh/500 kWh.
 

@kWhpony

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The other suggestion is to select the charger in the EA app and initiate charging before you plug in. This could be like chanting with no real basis. However, @eastern refugee was encountering issues with EA chargers until an EA customer service person gave him the advice to use the charger this way, and afterwards he didn't have any issues.
I took that advice before going for my first charge and everything went smoothly. Did the same using FordPass as well.
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