TheVirtualTim
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Tim
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2020
- Threads
- 26
- Messages
- 1,215
- Reaction score
- 2,195
- Location
- Dearborn, MI
- Vehicles
- Mach-E First Edition, Escape Hybrid
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.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.
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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