New Year's Eve Charging Nightmare

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Rfehl62

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I don’t mean this in a negative way, but have you ever thought of trying to call a couple of customers that you have good relationships with after they’ve had the car for a while and ask them for their candid views on it? I have a great relationship with my dealer and sales person and would definitely tell him the good, bad, and the ugly if he were to ask.
I have made a few calls but when I tell you we haven't sold many I mean it. Right now we are sitting at 11 total sold 3 of which belong to employees at the dealership. Whenever I call my customers I am told the same thing. They have either had no issues in their extremely limited use of the app and charger finder or have not used it at all since they only charge at home/work.
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Am I the only one wondering why any charging was necessary for a 160 mile round trip?
Yes I thought of that too.

Maybe the OP charges to less than 100% when leaving on a road trip?

I always charge to 100% everytime I leave for a road trip.

Anything less than 100% is asking for trouble (weather, traffic, detour, terrain, etc).
 

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Back in 2000/2001 I was a member of the Lincoln LS Owners Group. We got invited by Lincoln to attend car shows in our areas around the country as official Lincoln reps to share our "love of the car" with show attendees interested in it. This experience got terminated after about 6 months because we told the truth about the car's V8 engine failures, oil leaks and other shortcomings and Lincoln, understandably, didn't appreciate that. But we were telling people the truth. Beautiful car, crappy Jaguar-designed mechanicals.

Forums like this one serve a similar function with actual users sharing the good and the bad about their MME experiences. At least Ford does pay some attention here... but apparently user truths are not impacting dealer training.
 

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I have limited DCFC exposure but the one 3k road trip I did I checked the planned charging stops reviews in the app the day before to make sure no one was reporting a problem with each planned stop. Sometimes I would use ABRP and some states required their own app. By the end of the trip I had 7 different charging apps in my phone. One time near Atlanta ford suggested I goto an EvGo station that wasn't even completely installed yet...luckily being near Atlanta it wasn't a problem though. Another time Ford's route planner had me redirected 2 hours for a 30 min delay in the route ahead so obviously I checked some things with google maps. It's a real mess and honestly I doubt I'll do another road trip with it until long after a ton more stations are built. Suposidly there are less than 6k CCS level 2 chargers in CA and USA by comparison there are some 120k gas stations or so google claims. https://afdc.energy.gov/stations/#/find/nearest?fuel=ELEC&ev_connectors=J1772COMBO Also my experience with ford calling a tow truck hasn't been great. They lied to the tow truck driver claiming he just was repairing a flat tire to get him out there cause MMEs already had a bad rap in the area. When I called ford they even tried to suggest to tow it from the back and I had to correct them but that was over a year ago now so maybe things have improved a bit. I personally find less stress just not dealing with Ford but hey great car otherwise.
 
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Rfehl62

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Yes I thought of that too.

Maybe the OP charges to less than 100% when leaving on a road trip?

I always charge to 100% everytime I leave for a road trip.

Anything less than 100% is asking for trouble (weather, traffic, detour, terrain, etc).
Yes I was less than 100%. I left work with 92% and by the time I had gotten back home and was headed there I was around 80%.
 


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Rfehl62

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Back in 2000/2001 I was a member of the Lincoln LS Owners Group. We got invited by Lincoln to attend car shows in our areas around the country as official Lincoln reps to share our "love of the car" with show attendees interested in it. This experience got terminated after about 6 months because we told the truth about the car's V8 engine failures, oil leaks and other shortcomings and Lincoln, understandably, didn't appreciate that. But we were telling people the truth. Beautiful car, crappy Jaguar-designed mechanicals.

Forums like this one serve a similar function with actual users sharing the good and the bad about their MME experiences. At least Ford does pay some attention here... but apparently user truths are not impacting dealer training.
In my experience Ford can catch some things and will let you submit the issue but nothing will ever come of it. If you try to get at Ford directly you will just get with a marketing person. The best luck I have seen is tweeting actual execs.
 

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Never had that experience, but I ALWAYS verify EVERY CHARGING LOCATION on PlugShare before departing on my trip AND at the prior stop before leaving. ALWAYS.
So in this case, drive the route before to physically confirm the presence of the chargers? I get tired of the "always verify" advice, it's just not possible to verify to that level of detail. The answer is not to put the onus on the driver, the network should be trusted to be reliable and accurate with a modicum of effort. These chargers showed up on one of the largest and most legit networks in the US, what more should someone need to do?
 
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Rfehl62

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So in this case, drive the route before to physically confirm the presence of the chargers? I get tired of the "always verify" advice, it's just not possible to verify to that level of detail. The answer is not to put the onus on the driver, the network should be trusted to be reliable and accurate with a modicum of effort. These chargers showed up on one of the largest and most legit networks in the US, what more should someone need to do?
This is the point I have been trying to make exactly. It has since been verified that the charges were down the street from where the app was saying...From what I am finding out though, Ford is not the one who collects the data. It looks like the individual company provides the location data and Ford post it on the app. At some point in the transfer process whether it be submitted wrong or inputted by Ford incorrectly the address is being changed. It will be a challenge to figure out who is doing what. Best you can do is submit a problem when you find it. For now, you cannot trust Fords own app so always double check so you don't learn the hard way like myself.
 

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Thanks to the poster and others for these interesting comments. Ultimately, EVs are great in that most of us can charge our cars at home and/or work, and rarely have to deal with gas/charging stations. The time saved and aggravation avoided really add up, a largely unheralded advantage to EV cars.

Unfortunately, this means the the normal business model of gas stations, selling lots of energy to commuters and local people, is replaced by a much smaller business, selling energy to travelers who are too far from their inexpensive home chargers. The EV travelers (that's us) want two things that are expensive, rapid charging, which requires expensive infrastructure in a rapidly-changing engineering environment, and ultra-high reliability, so we can avoid getting stuck. It may be possible for companies like EA to provide this for non-shocking prices near coastal urban areas and the main interstate highways. But in all likelihood, providing fast charging with professional maintenance between Baton Rouge and Little Rock (just to pick a random example near me) might require charging more money for the energy than an equivalent ICE car would pay for gas in today's market. FWIW, I'm OK with that, as I save much more money charging at home when I'm not road-tripping.

My worry is that all of the free government money for charging infrastructure will end without solving that problem. To be clear, the problem, as I see it, is that the new post-ICE market will need far fewer energy stations, leaving places without competing stations near each other. These stations will each need to much more reliable than now evident, and so will have to charge much more to be profitable. Many EV drivers will not want to pay, as their price-sense will be anchored to the cheap electricity at home.
 

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While I understand your perspective, you couldn't be more wrong.

Ford, and other car makers, have their own proprietary navigation. We as consumers, basically can't provide input to it (you can, via HERE, but not easily). Therefore, there must be a capability for consumers to provide "reviews" and "experiences" that others can see. Given that there are a lot of charging networks (and Ford's is simply a labeling of existing networks that they have no control over), PlugShare has to exist.

Many of us check in to every location on PlugShare, and provide comments for others to review.

I suspect if you look up these invisible chargers, not one exists at those addresses and zip codes, but all exist at the same addresses in other zip codes.
Rick is absolutely right. Plus, Plugshare has been around for years to help EV drivers find and rate chargers when the only in-car charger navigation system was in Teslas. I used it for several years to find Level 2 charges when I had a Chevrolet VOLT before I got my Mach-E.
 

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My worry is that all of the free government money for charging infrastructure will end without solving that problem. To be clear, the problem, as I see it, is that Many EV drivers will not want to pay, as their price-sense will be anchored to the cheap electricity at home.
I think this is very on point. The free market cost of installing a DCFC station just on actual costs/ depreciation likely requires some thing like $0.25c kWh assuming like 24/7 usage to make a 10% IRR. When you add in cost of electricity and fact that its best likely usage is maybe 50%. It probably means something like $0.50 kWh or more probably to make an economic return. Hence, the model is already broken and dependent on government largess before it even gets off the ground
 
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Rfehl62

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Thanks to the poster and others for these interesting comments. Ultimately, EVs are great in that most of us can charge our cars at home and/or work, and rarely have to deal with gas/charging stations. The time saved and aggravation avoided really add up, a largely unheralded advantage to EV cars.

Unfortunately, this means the the normal business model of gas stations, selling lots of energy to commuters and local people, is replaced by a much smaller business, selling energy to travelers who are too far from their inexpensive home chargers. The EV travelers (that's us) want two things that are expensive, rapid charging, which requires expensive infrastructure in a rapidly-changing engineering environment, and ultra-high reliability, so we can avoid getting stuck. It may be possible for companies like EA to provide this for non-shocking prices near coastal urban areas and the main interstate highways. But in all likelihood, providing fast charging with professional maintenance between Baton Rouge and Little Rock (just to pick a random example near me) might require charging more money for the energy than an equivalent ICE car would pay for gas in today's market. FWIW, I'm OK with that, as I save much more money charging at home when I'm not road-tripping.

My worry is that all of the free government money for charging infrastructure will end without solving that problem. To be clear, the problem, as I see it, is that the new post-ICE market will need far fewer energy stations, leaving places without competing stations near each other. These stations will each need to much more reliable than now evident, and so will have to charge much more to be profitable. Many EV drivers will not want to pay, as their price-sense will be anchored to the cheap electricity at home.
You make some great points. I myself charge at work and typically don't consider the cost. I will admit whenever I am doing a longer trip my main concern is having a charger that is both available and working. Price is honestly not even on my mind.
 

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I have a hybrid that gets 42mpg in the winter for this reason. When in doubt, I take the hybrid with it’s 600 mile range.

In southern CT there few oasis’s in the charging desert towards RI. I have 12 fast chargers near my home that I don’t need.
 

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Sorry if I missed this, but were these chargers shown in the right location on the ChargePoint app or not? Ford pulls data from them.

I’ve had issues with the in-car Nav not showing newer chargers that are almost two years old. Was routing me all over the place thinking there was no charging were I was.
 
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Rfehl62

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Sorry if I missed this, but were these chargers shown in the right location on the ChargePoint app or not? Ford pulls data from them.

I’ve had issues with the in-car Nav not showing newer chargers that are almost two years old. Was routing me all over the place thinking there was no charging were I was.
It was all from the Fordpass app. I did not use the Chargepoint app but did call and was given the same address with a different zip code.
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