Blue Oval Charge Network Electrify America Charging Membership

TheVirtualTim

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So Ford wants to charge for the EA membership through their own app/service? And they want a full year up front, $2 more than the Pass+ plan for a year, and the discount isn't as good (25% versus about 28% for Pass+ in many states)? And, presumably, this discount only applies on the one car where this is registered and if P&C works? So you wouldn't get the discount if you charged a friend's car, a rental car, or a second EV? P&C as currently implemented seems like a marketing gimmick rather than a useful tool for EV drivers.
If you bought the $4 Pass+ membership every month for a year, that's $48. Ford is charing $50. This means Ford is basically making $2 per year off us ... not really much considering that they need server infrastructure and billing systems on the backend to support it. I think this is maybe a break-even business ... possibly not even a break-even service.

There are trade-offs to how you get EA Pass+ rates... through EA vs. through Ford. EA will let you buy the membership a month at a time. Through Ford it's a full-year. But through EA you can't use P&C whereas through Ford you can use P&C. Through EA you have to pre-load your account with some charging credits (cash up front). Through Ford you get billed when you charge (no cash up front).

As for the "can you use it with another car?" I think if it isn't using Plug & Charge ... then I think you can. You can go into FordPass and manually initiate a charge. So if you're standing at an EA station with your rental car ... you should just be able to manually start the charger through the FordPass app.

I'm not sure why you view P&C as a marketing gimmick. I was at the grocery yesterday. Meijer near my home has several Greenlots Level 2 chargers and they are free. Three young kids that looked to be maybe in their 20's pulled in with an EV and proceeded to try to hook up their car to the charger. They were all fussing over the station and looking at an app ... trying lots of things but didn't seem to be succeeding. Finally one of them says "just forget it ... leave the car connected and lets just go in". I looked over at their station and could see it wasn't actually charging.

I'm not sure why Meijer & Greenlots offer free charging, but you HAVE to download the Greenlots app, setup an account, and then use the app to initiate the charge session even though it's a free charge. These guys couldn't figure it out ... so they gave up.

In that regard ... Plug & Charge skips the hassle and really simplifies charging. I realize it's a little glitchy sometimes but I'm sure over time those glitches will get smoothed out (there are VERY few cars that support Plug & Charge. I think the Mach-E could possibly be the only non-VW/Porche car model that has it right now.)
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ChasingCoral

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I think the Mach-E could possibly be the only non-VW/Porche car model that has it right now.)
VW doesn't have P&C yet and EA is their subsidiary!
 

TheVirtualTim

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VW doesn't have P&C yet and EA is their subsidiary!
I was at an EA station a week or two back and there happened to be a guy with a new ID.4 charging. I asked him if he had Plug & Charge and he told me they had it. Your post caused me to go do some Googling and it seems the guy probably didn't really understand P&C. It seems they don't actually have it.
 

AZBill

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I'm not sure why you view P&C as a marketing gimmick. I was at the grocery yesterday. Meijer near my home has several Greenlots Level 2 chargers and they are free. Three young kids that looked to be maybe in their 20's pulled in with an EV and proceeded to try to hook up their car to the charger. They were all fussing over the station and looking at an app ... trying lots of things but didn't seem to be succeeding. Finally one of them says "just forget it ... leave the car connected and lets just go in". I looked over at their station and could see it wasn't actually charging.
P&C does not work on L2, it does not have the handshake protocol to do that. Most free chargers you simply plug in and they work, but I do know ChargePoint is an exception to that. You have to be connected to a CCS charger that supports the ISO protocol.
 

RickMachE

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If you bought the $4 Pass+ membership every month for a year, that's $48. Ford is charing $50. This means Ford is basically making $2 per year off us ... not really much considering that they need server infrastructure and billing systems on the backend to support it. I think this is maybe a break-even business ... possibly not even a break-even service.

There are trade-offs to how you get EA Pass+ rates... through EA vs. through Ford. EA will let you buy the membership a month at a time. Through Ford it's a full-year. But through EA you can't use P&C whereas through Ford you can use P&C. Through EA you have to pre-load your account with some charging credits (cash up front). Through Ford you get billed when you charge (no cash up front).

As for the "can you use it with another car?" I think if it isn't using Plug & Charge ... then I think you can. You can go into FordPass and manually initiate a charge. So if you're standing at an EA station with your rental car ... you should just be able to manually start the charger through the FordPass app.

I'm not sure why you view P&C as a marketing gimmick. I was at the grocery yesterday. Meijer near my home has several Greenlots Level 2 chargers and they are free. Three young kids that looked to be maybe in their 20's pulled in with an EV and proceeded to try to hook up their car to the charger. They were all fussing over the station and looking at an app ... trying lots of things but didn't seem to be succeeding. Finally one of them says "just forget it ... leave the car connected and lets just go in". I looked over at their station and could see it wasn't actually charging.

I'm not sure why Meijer & Greenlots offer free charging, but you HAVE to download the Greenlots app, setup an account, and then use the app to initiate the charge session even though it's a free charge. These guys couldn't figure it out ... so they gave up.

In that regard ... Plug & Charge skips the hassle and really simplifies charging. I realize it's a little glitchy sometimes but I'm sure over time those glitches will get smoothed out (there are VERY few cars that support Plug & Charge. I think the Mach-E could possibly be the only non-VW/Porche car model that has it right now.)
Are you sure they are free?
 


TheVirtualTim

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Are you sure they are free?
Yes, it is definitely free. If I pull up my charge history it's a big long column of summaries showing "Free" all the way down the page.

But you DO still need a Greenlots account be signed-in to start the charge.
 

RickMachE

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RickMachE

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If you bought the $4 Pass+ membership every month for a year, that's $48. Ford is charing $50. This means Ford is basically making $2 per year off us ... not really much considering that they need server infrastructure and billing systems on the backend to support it. I think this is maybe a break-even business ... possibly not even a break-even service.

There are trade-offs to how you get EA Pass+ rates... through EA vs. through Ford. EA will let you buy the membership a month at a time. Through Ford it's a full-year. But through EA you can't use P&C whereas through Ford you can use P&C. Through EA you have to pre-load your account with some charging credits (cash up front). Through Ford you get billed when you charge (no cash up front).

As for the "can you use it with another car?" I think if it isn't using Plug & Charge ... then I think you can. You can go into FordPass and manually initiate a charge. So if you're standing at an EA station with your rental car ... you should just be able to manually start the charger through the FordPass app.

I'm not sure why you view P&C as a marketing gimmick. I was at the grocery yesterday. Meijer near my home has several Greenlots Level 2 chargers and they are free. Three young kids that looked to be maybe in their 20's pulled in with an EV and proceeded to try to hook up their car to the charger. They were all fussing over the station and looking at an app ... trying lots of things but didn't seem to be succeeding. Finally one of them says "just forget it ... leave the car connected and lets just go in". I looked over at their station and could see it wasn't actually charging.

I'm not sure why Meijer & Greenlots offer free charging, but you HAVE to download the Greenlots app, setup an account, and then use the app to initiate the charge session even though it's a free charge. These guys couldn't figure it out ... so they gave up.

In that regard ... Plug & Charge skips the hassle and really simplifies charging. I realize it's a little glitchy sometimes but I'm sure over time those glitches will get smoothed out (there are VERY few cars that support Plug & Charge. I think the Mach-E could possibly be the only non-VW/Porche car model that has it right now.)
I see two issues with Plug and Charge.

1) No where can you easily find the cost of Plug and Charge, nor where it works. Nor what chargers are in the network, besides EA and Greenlots.

2). While the comparison of $48 and $50 is valid, if I only travel a few months a year, I can pay EA $4, then immediately downgrade, which takes effect a month later. I can then upgrade immediately at any time, and then downgrade again. I may spend $12 or even $20 in a year, not $50.

If I knew the rates I would pay via Ford, and the complete network, I might not care.
 

timbop

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No where can you easily find the cost of Plug and Charge, nor where it works. Nor what chargers are in the network, besides EA and Greenlots.
I think you are conflating "the fordpass blue oval network" and "plug-n-charge". "Plug-n-charge" is only supported by EA chargers, and is billed through your ford account. The "blue oval network" on which you can pay for charging (and initiate those charges) through Fordpass is listed in fordpass by clicking on "map", selecting charging from the drop down, clicking filters and then scrolling down to "networks". You can also enter a location in the search bar and then it shows the chargers near that point
 
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RickMachE

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Thanks. Should be much clearer.
 

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Why is everything with Ford an "introductory" subscription/trial? FordPass charging we get 2 years of supposedly. I forget how long we get the maps for. Mobile hotspot is a 3 month trial. Same with SiriusXM. Blue Cruise is going to be a $600 "introductory" 3 year offer. Now we have this as a $50 one year "introductory" subscription. How many in app purchases are they going to put into one car?
The truth is we don't need any of that.
 

timbop

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The truth is we don't need any of that.
Exactly. You can absolutely drive your car using auto lane centering, use your phone's NAV through AA/CP, and listen to free radio as you charge wherever you like without paying any of Ford's add-on fees.

If you like the add-on features, then you can pay for them
 

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Exactly. You can absolutely drive your car using auto lane centering, use your phone's NAV through AA/CP, and listen to free radio as you charge wherever you like without paying any of Ford's add-on fees.

If you like the add-on features, then you can pay for them
What if I paid over 50k for my car and don’t want micro transactions?
 

TheVirtualTim

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I'm surprised people are having a hard time with these opt-in services.

If you don't want them then don't use them. The car works as well with or without.

A while back we had the question if Plug & Charge could get us the Pass+ discounted rate at EA. We found out the answer was "no". But Ford worked with EA to make that possible. So this is an optional thing that people can use to get the discounted rate for those who use EA enough to make it worth their while.

You can certainly get the Pass+ rate direct from EA on a month-by-month basis (the Ford plan is year-by-year only) ... but buying it through EA wont let you use the convenience of Plug & Charge.

SiriusXM is similar and that has really nothing to do with Ford. If you want SiriusXM you go to SiriusXM to enroll in a plan. It's just that Ford installs a radio that supports SiriusXM.

The same is true of AT&T in-car internet. You don't sign up for that via Ford ... you sign up via AT&T. It's just that Ford needs a cellular modem for their remote services and they happened to pick AT&T for it. But that included service ONLY supports the car ... not general Internet usage. If you want that ... you gotta pay AT&T. (I wish the car allowed to pick our carrier.)
 
 




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