What charger do you recommend? Why?

[Haven]

I have not yet received my car but I went to get the house ready. I will most likely drive 30-50 miles per day with the occasional 150 mile “trip” to see family. My car will be outside most of the time, charger will be in an exterior closet with cord running outside (a 15 foot of cord would be ideal)

1) What charger do you recommend, Why? How long have you had it?

2). How loud are the chargers/charging process? (neighbors window close to location). I see some videos of extremely loud charging! Wow!

3) Any other details/instructions/things to know….you can provide would be appreciated!

I would suggest you check with your electric provider and see if they offer a rebate and if so, for which ones. Mine offered a $500 rebate for a ChargePoint Flex one so that is what I got. I had plan to just use the mobile charger but with rebate and federal tax credit, it cost me only a couple hundred for the charger and installation i used the 14-50 plug so it works for the mobile charger and the ChargePoint. Ive only had it a few weeks but it works great. The ChargePoint flex was on back order and took 3 weeks so if you decide to get a wall charger, order it before your vehicle arrives incase there is a lead time.

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[SnBGC]

I'm happy with my Wallbox Pulsar Plus. A smart adjustable 6-40 amp, compact, indoor / outdoor Wi-Fi and Bluetooth EVSE. I especially appreciate the that it comes with a 25 ft cord. That will be handy for my wife's upcoming Rav4 Prime.

I had initially considered a hard-wired 48 amp unit, but I decided that if anything goes wrong with the plug in, I can unplug it and have the Ford Mobile Charger using the same outlet in less than a minute. 40amps is fast enough for my home needs.

Noise? Wallbox is completely silent. The only noise is the Mach-E internal charger hums quietly, and sometimes opens the shutters to run a cooling fan during charging. But it's not loud, you'd have to be within ten feet to even hear it indoors. Outdoors no one is going to notice.

We are testing the Pulsar Plus ourselves and found them to be pretty good. The app is a little glitchy but not really that much of a problem. Close and re-open the app and it seems good for that session. If you received the separate cord hangar in the box then you might want to consider installing that. We have observed some interference with the electronics by having the charge cable wrapped round the housing. Coiling it on the hangar seemed to help.


We also had to run a separate conduit for the communications cable (when connecting multiple units together) because there was interference from the line feed that powers the units. Wallbox says it's totally fine to run the communications wire inside the same conduit but we don't recommend it.

 

[Silver Lake]

It's funny how people spending $50k+ on a car are such penny pinchers.

I have $50k+ to spend on a car because I am careful with my money.
Some call it penny pinching, I call it frugal.

 

[AlbanyIan]

I went with the Chargepoint to get the 50 Amp rating. (Still looking for 6 gauge conductors that won’t cost more than the charger!) I do a lot of local trips checking on parents and shuttling kids and want to be able to add a few miles as quickly as possible. I also figured since the service to my garage sucked and had to run new, I may as well do it right. Then I can also keep the mobile charger that came with the car nice and neat in the “brunk”. ?

Maybe buying the BEV was just an excuse to re-power the garage and put some power tools in the loft. ?.

 

[TheVirtualTim]

I would suggest you check with your electric provider and see if they offer a rebate and if so, for which ones.

I recommend the same thing. I also got a $500 rebate on mine. Considering the rebate and the federal tax credit (30% of the cost to buy & install EV charging equipment to a maximum of $1000) it was basically free.

 

[J5hort]

I’m debating a 3rd party evse as well. Don’t really need it but maybe ? would use the “smart” features some. There is a federal rebate or something for the install (might have to do that before the end of the year, not sure) and my power company will give me $250 towards the evse.

Just need to know what the benefit EVSE provides over just using supplied cable. A little faster charging not really important for my use case. I can schedule and set charge limit via Ford Pass app. I have another thread going on talking me into an EVSE.

 

[iwii]

I have $50k+ to spend on a car because I am careful with my money.
Some call it penny pinching, I call it frugal.

Given the number of people in society who make some unbelievably questionable financial decisions, I say keep up the good work!

To stay on topic...I chose the ChargePoint HomeFlex because it is highly rated, I can hardwire it on a 60amp, and my local utility has a nice rebate for it.

 

[JamieGeek]

Just here pointing out that you can use Ford Pass to do the scheduling and charge now etc. (as mentioned above) but the point not mentioned is that you don't have to set up PAAK for any of the charging stuff to work.

Thus: Don't complain about having to use PAAK to setup a charge schedule as you don't have to.

In addition: If anyone has any questions about anchient (in the EV world--circa 2013) Bosch/SPX, Clipper Creek, or JuiceBox chargers....fire away LOL.

 

[SirLamerok]

I installed a chargepoint and hardwired with a 60 amp breaker. Mine was an easy install and I like the convenience of the wall unit vs the included mobile unit. It's future proofed up to 48 amps now and the speed is better so why not go for it was my thinking. Rebates lowered the cost for me anyways.

 

[Jimrpa]

I didn’t see it mentioned - I have the Ford Connected Charge Station and it’s been working without any issues (there were some initial setup hiccups with the jumper settings).

 

[J5hort]

I’m debating a 3rd party evse as well. Don’t really need it but maybe ? would use the “smart” features some. There is a federal rebate or something for the install (might have to do that before the end of the year, not sure) and my power company will give me $250 towards the evse.

What "Smart" features are being sought? The Mach-E allows me to set charging schedule and max charging percentage and all can be monitored via the Ford Pass app. The app also allows a one button charge to 100% if a longer trip is planned. My want to start with using the supplied cable, then buy the EVSE if needed. You may find you do not need the add'l equipment.

 

[AlbanyIan]

I just got back from a fun little wet-weather drive on some back roads in the hills around my place and thought of another reason to get a higher speed charger like the ChargePoint: it’s possible to drain the battery pretty quick on twisty ascents and if you’re in a hurry to get back home, you may not be coasting the descents to regen your battery. This is especially a concern when your friends are coming over to try the car out. Think how disappointed they’d be if you had to tell them to come back tomorrow when the Mach-E is finally charged. ?

 

[generaltso]

What "Smart" features are being sought? The Mach-E allows me to set charging schedule and max charging percentage and all can be monitored via the Ford Pass app.

Does it tell you the rate at which it's charging? Not sure if they've added that, but that was originally one of the basic features that was missing from the Ford Connected Charging Station.

 

[J-orange]

ChargePoint Home Flex is a very popular option, though on the higher end price and feature-wise of available chargers.

You don’t need this charger, which runs around $700. Lots of people get it though because of quirks with their local utility either only subsidizing some higher priced models (and it’s sometimes this one), or by giving you more money for getting a more feature rich model (this was my scenario and I gor it for this reason). There is also a 30% federal tax deduction (capped at $1,000) for your charger + installation costs.

I typically charge at 32amps, though the ChargePoint Home Flex can charge at up to 50 amps (Mach-E caps out at 48 amps). It’s also worth mentioning the electrician install cost will be higher the faster you want to charge.

But 32amps is plenty for most people and should easily get you a full overnight charge even on an extended range model, as you likely would not be charging 0% to 100% (bad for the battery).

Though part of the reason I went for it (and had my electrician install the wiring to 48 amps) was for future proofing in case 48amp charging becomes more important with future EVs, and if I ever need to top off in a hurry at home with a few hours notice, to be able to do so more easily.

ChargePoint Home Flex on Amazon

Do you have to configure the ChargePoint to only provide 40 amps? I am planning on having an electrician to install a 50 amp dedicated circuit for my 2022 MME ER which i should hopefully get in late April.

 

[JohnnyForensic]

I love my ChargePoint Home Flex. IMHO, it’s the best looking of the bunch, and I like the swivel-mounted integrated holster for the charger. The cable loops around the body of the charger itself, so it’s a clean, all-in-one kind of package. I have it on a 50A breaker, and you set the ChargePoint‘s amperage when you install it through the app (you tell it what size breaker you’re on, and it does the charging calculation math for you). So, I’m charging at 40A, which gets me roughly 28-30 miles per hour of charging, and I’ve never heard my MME make a noise louder than a loud refrigerator hum. I do live in Virginia, so we don’t have blistering summers (usually), so it hasn’t had to work hard to cool down during charging. However, if you want to turn it down, it’s just a matter of setting a picklist in the app instead of pulling it off the wall to crack it open and change dip switches.

Both the ChargePoint and the MME allow you to set time-of-day charging to match your electrical rates if you have those that change, and the ChargePoint app gives you some nice data on how much your charges cost based upon your utility rates that it determines for you based on your electricity provider and plan.

I leave the Ford mobile charger in the car in the event that I have some kind of dire emergency and need to charge somewhere weird/unexpectedly, but that has yet to be an issue (knock on wood).

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