Anyone else sign up for the Xcel/Ford "charging perks" program?

[khbkhb]

Purportedly, the program allows Xcel to manage grid load by leveraging Ford's factory access to download a charge schedule based on Xcel's load capacity. This seems like a fine idea ... but

1. There's no useful way to report bugs (neither Xcel nor Ford support staff seem to have any clues, Ford dropped the call during transfers and the "chat" line is over an hour long).
2. There is no obvious way to see the resulting schedule. Obviously, it may be dynamic, but there ought to be a way to see what is planned.
3. Despite our "desired charge level" being 90% max (often 80%) now charging is set to 100%. This can only be observed by "charge details" in the app, or ex post facto looking at the dashboard after charging is completed.

IF anyone from Ford pays any attention, if/when you create a pilot you should make sure there is a direct path (bypassing the maze of automated and human screens) to get to the folks who are managing the pilot itself. Counting on partners like Xcel is unwise to say the least.

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[RickMachE]

We signed up for a Ford / DTE similar program last fall. They didn't alter the schedule, but they had "CHARGE NOW" and "DON'T CHARGE" events.

Given we had an intelligent EVSE, we could prevent charging during peak hour CHARGE NOW events (why on earth would they think we want to charge at peak rates?), and with it was "DON'T CHARGE" during charging periods, it was only for maybe 2 hours and didn't matter.

For our participation we got $50 at the start and $50 at the end. I gave them extensive feedback (they sent a survey as I recall). And yes, no one at either company knew squat.

 

[khbkhb]

we have a wallbox charger, which isn't one of Xcel's favored suppliers. As we aren't on a TOU program (the "peak" rate isn't bad, so we were in no hurry to move to a new meter and the modern/more complex Xcel programs) so the charging perks program sounded appealing (at least in a socially responsible sense). $100 to enroll and $100 for sticking with it for a year.

But if they are going to shorten our pack life, we won't be sticking with it ;<

 

[Courtney]

We just started with this program. Curious if it always bypassed your desired charge level or if this occurred some time after you started the program? I’ve got my charge level set to 90% as well. So far it’s charged to 90% but it’s only been 2 nights!

 

[khbkhb]

This was our first night, good to hear it works correctly for someone else ... perhaps it was a one off. we shall see tonight!

 

[jcloudm]

Yes, I've been on this program since basically the day they offered it for signup. I have no problems with it over charging - it charges me to 90% each time. I will say it is annoying that I don't know when in the next 24 hours it will charge my car in the app, but I'll take the $100 incentives instead. On the days I have to actually leave the house at a given time (rare given I'm still working from home) I set a departure time and it's always charged by then.

Overall it seems pretty straightforward to me.

 

[khbkhb]

Well day 2 and it’s shooting for 100% against my FordPass app setting. I’ll kill it manually. Since neither Ford nor Xcel has any mean full support if this persists to day 3 I’ll see if the online opt out functions. Pity

 

[jcloudm]

Maybe re-set the 90% limit now that you're enrolled? Sorry that's happening to you.

 

[phidauex]

I signed up recently and it seems to be working fine. We did get our gift card, and the schedule respects our 80% charge target. That said, I do wish it gave a way to see when it will actually charge, it just says that it will complete sometime before our next scheduled departure, and that we can text to override it. I have not tested override, though we've probably had 10 "normal" charges work correctly, and respect the 80% limit.

I just checked and here are a few recent charge times that it has selected:

• Today - 6pm to 7pm (not enough to get to 80%, I assume it will do another charge later tonight) EDIT: sure enough, it ran 3:00am to 5:45am to top off.
• April 30th - 10pm to 11:30pm
• April 28th - 2am to 3:30am
• April 26th - 2am to 3:15am, then a very short charge to top off at 7:40am
• April 25th - 12:52am to 6:00am, then two very short top offs at 7:08am and 8:40am
• April 23rd - 1:55am to 6:00am

So it hops around, but seems to prefer the very early morning. It also seems to throw in a few top-up charges if it didn't think it got quite enough the first time, and sometimes it will charge for just a few minutes immediately after I plug it in.

I suppose that is why it is a pilot - they are probably futzing with the optimization algorithm trying to balance charge accuracy with optimal grid pricing. For now I'm willing to keep letting it run, getting the $100 incentive to try, and $100 if we stick with it until the end of the year is worth it, that is about 1,500 kWhs or 4,500 miles of free fuel...

 

[khbkhb]

I'm not shocked that there are bugs; but that there appears to be no way to get the bug reported, much less worked ... or a hint of an ETA or workaround ... as suggested above, I reset the max charge level (multiple times, 80%, 85, 90%) and it's still cheerfully aiming for 100% ;<
Texting UNENROLL as their online help says .. fails, and the provided 800 number seems to be mapped to the same Ford support dialog I wasted several hours on day 1). OVERRIDE doesn't clear their munged setting either ;<

Well it seemed like a good idea. Obviously not so much now ;<

 

[khbkhb]

I need to confirm tonight, but I finally got through to someone in the know at Ford. It seems that FordPass->Vehicle->Charge settings->Preferred Charge Times "charge when plugged in" cheerfully (and silently) ignores the the desired charge setting. "Use Preferred charge settings" needs to be selected.

I've asked them to publish the email address that corresponds to the folks running the pilot. If that doesn't happen, and anyone here has direct input, I'll pass it along.

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