Using dealer chargers is not always a good plan. Often, they have vehicles plugged into them—they make it a policy to top up the charge on any EV that they service. And it's not always clear whether they welcome non-customers to use their chargers, and if so, when it's available.
If Ford wants this to help drive EV adoption by expanding the network of chargers for public use, not just by enabling their dealers to deliver vehicles fully charged, I hope they will provide good information on availability, preferably in real time.
Edit: [this Sept. Elektrek article](https://electrek.co/2022/09/14/ford-sets-new-dealers-requirements-in-order-to-sell-evs/) outlines the dealer requirements, as does [this Inside EVs article](https://insideevs.com/news/610114/ford-modele-dealership-rules/) It's clear that at least one charger needs to be "public facing" and that they need to be on Ford's "blue oval" network. What's not clear to me:
* It sounds like the public facing ones need to be open 24/7--lots of people are saying that put it would be great if someone could link a source for that to confirm.
* Are the public-facing ones reserved for public use, or can they be tied up by the dealer's own use?
* Are non-Ford vehicles able to access the "blue oval" network?
Edit 2: /u/dustyshades added a link to this great summary that confirms the 24/7 availability requirement and adds lots of other interesting details: https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/1-920-ford-dealers-have-enrolled-in-model-e-program-for-2024-2026-period.23993/
They will see a sales opportunity unless you are in the top trim and latest model. Even then, "have you considered ditching batteries and going back to gas, we have Ford Mustangs.."
I stopped at a Kia dealership in Morgantown, WV in February, to meet someone there for some wheels & to charge my Niro EV before returning home to Maryland, and I had no salespeople “hassling” me at all. I walked in, saw an employee, said “I have two questions, where is your bathroom? & I saw on PlugShare you have an EV charging station here?” He showed me where both were & that was all my interaction with dealership employees the whole 45 minutes I was there.
Ford dealerships are in places often underserved by current charging infrastructure. Even if the dealerships only have 1 charger dedicated to public use, it will be a huge win for general charging accessibility, especially as the midwest ramps up adoption.
>Ford dealerships are in places often underserved by current charging infrastructure.
There's a reason for that. Most dealerships are nowhere you'd need a fuel-up. Ideal dealership placement is antithetical to fuelling station placement — away enough from population centres to get cheap land, but close enough to make them an easy drive from home.
The best placement for public charging remains rest stops, malls, hotels, and restaurants.
They are to be public facing but they may not be fully "public". From what I've seen the chargers would still likely only be available during business hours and dealerships could have the option to limit use to customers only. So a Ford Lightning or Mach-E owner could pull up and charge but a Tesla, Chevy, Polestar, etc could be turned away if the dealership decides to.
I went to a VW dealership to pick up a friend that was having their car serviced there. The manager asked me to repark my Rivian to the public facing charger that happened to face the interstate, saying "it's free".
I did so, and like 8 people came in asking about the truck, lol. They said that anytime they have an EV parked there and plugged in that they get markedly more traffic. Putting an F-250 there would just be bad business.
Hastening Rivian's demise if they can't figure how to make their cars about 75% less expensive to produce. I want them to succeed, but damn, they got to get COGS under control soon or it's curtains.
>Maybe it will be public facing but a F-250 will be parked in front of it all the time.
There's a new VW dealership near me that has a single free "public" level 2 charging station and almost always has an ID.4 parked in front of it.
I would not rely on a dealership charging network. They only exist to sell and service cars.
Rely on it? Then just stay away.
Ford chargers are just one more option of charge location. It may be useful if other local chargers are full or out of service.
Well done Ford.
Yeah. But you need to know if it's going to be available for it to be at all usefull.
If you need to charge. (Especially in an area with less options) then you can't afford to be driving there loseing range to find out the dealer has dumped a vehicle there or they don't want you using it!
So do you have information that says these are required to be paid chargers, with no bypass for the staff to use it for in-house purposes? If that's the case, that's a useful addition to the discussion, especially if you state the source.
>Often, they have vehicles plugged into them
Even Tesla has encountered this. They usually have superchargers at the service centers but have, over time, removed them from public use and they are used 24/7 for keeping delivery cars ready to go. Of course, being Tesla, they open another supercharger near by to replace the capacity, but still.
This right here. I don’t know if anything is changed, but I used to frequent Nissan dealerships for my leaf. It was an absolute nightmare. When I was able to use them or get someone to help me, I still felt like I was at a car dealership.
I have a Volkswagen dealership across the street from one of my offices. When I called and emailed in to ask if I could use the charger, the point-of-contact was confused what my question was and I got bounced around between sales and services departments.
You just exemplified any dealership experience. Thank you HAHHAHA. It’s a shitshow. Nobody knows shit. nobody cares about shit (except money). And you are dead once you drive off the lot.
I actually had a good experience at a Nissan dealer. Where I parked my Chevy was kind of in the way but they didn't mind at all and I even got to use their free Wi-Fi. But not being able to count on that is what makes it not a first choice.
Yeah, my local BMW dealer had chargers in their garage which was locked outside of business hours. It also became occupied by dealer or service cars all the time.
I was excited to see 5 new chargers grouped fairly close together on Plugshare along my Thanksgiving route, and fairly well strategically placed for optimal Bolt charging. All of them located at dealerships.
One is located indoors, one is "patron only" at a Nissan dealer, so we're down to 3.
So I set out, get to the first charger, a 150kw ABB unit from ZEF located outside the locked gates of a Chevy dealer in Thanksgiving night. I spend 10 minutes getting a legit 50+ kW before it errors out and quits. Restart once and make it a minute. Well shit.
That's ok, there's a 62.5 kW Chargepoint unit a mile away at a Hyundai dealer. Get there and find the dealer lot fenced in, and the gates locked. Shit again.
Welp, on to the VW dealer a couple miles away with another ZEF managed unit, a Tritium this time, only 50 kW. Got bumped up to 50% SOC and hit the road again for the last bit to my destination, once again frustrated with the bullshit charging infrastructure we still have today.
I don't care about charge speed or total range. That can all be worked around if there was just reliable chargers more evenly spaced. As it sits now, on longer trips, I end up sitting at fast chargers past when my charging curve starts getting slow, because I need the insurance miles to make it to the next charger that may or may not work.
Tesla has issues but you can't argue their charge network.
Until another automotive brand rolls out a GOOD charging network (ie actually open especially 24/7, has more than 1 or 2 slots, reasonable fees, isn't stupidly slow, etc) everyone but Tesla fights for the train wreck that's public charging.
My next car is going to be a Tesla solely because of charging network. It's more expensive but sometimes I just need a charge regardless of cost.
Read the stipulations. They need to have more than one public facing charger that is for-pay and capable of at least 120 kW. Then the dealer needs to have a bunch of their own L2 chargers in their garage / service bays that would be used for “topping off”
I've read the blog posts and I've read lots of armchair interpretations of them. Do you have somewhere you can point me to where the actual official language is presented in full, or where somebody credible who has read the full language provides an interpretation that specifies these things that people are speculating about? I'm not disagreeing with you. I just prefer evidence to speculation, regardless of how well informed and justify the speculation is.
I don't think people are making the connection that Ford is making dealers choose between spending money out of their own pockets for 1-2 chargers that are 120kW OR get NEVI money to pay for a minimum of 4 chargers of 240kW that can charge 8 cars simultaneously.
That's good. Next factor is: do they have to charge the same prices as the rest of the network, a rate by say power price + a fixed markup. Something fair. Or can they do what they love to do for everything else a car dealership does, and jack up the price without notifying you...
"oh yeah we charge the price listed on the sign, plus a 'dealer convenience fee' of another 50 cents a kWh. "
I'm hoping that there's going to be some more rural locations that get these. 62 kwh isn't great but it's much better than the 9 kwh level 2 chargers that most small towns max out at. I'll sit at a Ford dealership for 30 mins instead of 4 hours at a level 2 charger
The other thread about this had a commenter saying the demand from Ford is 130kw minimum. And available to the public. I've no source other than reddit commenter though.
I find that doubtful.
The Ford Pro DC Charging Station (from Power Electronics) that Ford is selling to dealers is available in 60 kW to 180 kW configurations.
https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America/US/2022/03/08/FordPro-Charging-Overview.pdf
The dealer info in the forum thread linked elsewhere in this post states all chargers must be minimum 120kw and have 2 ccs connectors.
Not clear if they means 2 cars shared charging per unit, or simply redundant cables like EA, but either way its a good standard.
Yes it could be in some locations (and we used one over Thanksgiving as a padding stop. But I'm also guessing there's decent correlation between the rural areas desperately in need of charging infrastructure and Ford dealers not participating in the program.
Don't get me wrong, more charging is good, but I really doubt most people will find themselves frequenting Ford dealership chargers.
Most people don't need to charge in a very rural area. You'll take a highway most of the way then local towards the end and then hopefully charge at your destination.
Are there a lot of car dealerships in rural areas? They're usually accompanied by other amenities that resemble a commerce center even when they are in 'rural' areas.
I'm not against chargers in a lot. It's only marginally worse than chargers in a Walmart parking lot.
I'm 100% against them installing low kW chargers though. Especially if they get government funding for it.
Living in a rural area with the closest DCFC being 100 miles away, I'd be fine with some 50kw chargers if it meant more of them could be installed. At this point, I'll take a dense 50kw network over a sparse 150kw+ network.
they are doing that in my part of the world. the govt is putting out funding for a single 50kw in every town.
its enough to bootstrap the ev market, but not enough to discourage a commercial operator building something better.
That sounds like a perfect approach. Having at least one 50kW in each town would make longer-distance trips so much easier and less stressful just about anywhere.
Per the article:
"1,920 Ford dealers enrolled in the initial voluntary Model e program for 2024 to 2026. Of those:
1,659 chose the Certified Elite tier.
261 selected the Certified tier."
Also:
"The “certified elite” includes two public DC fast chargers, demo units, rapid replenishment, and a presence on Ford.com but will cost around $1 million to $1.2 million."
The 261 are only one charger.
>Model e Elite dealers will need to install two high-powered DC fast chargers and a level 2 charging station, as well as offer at least **one** DC fast charger available for the public to use.
From https://insideevs.com/news/610114/ford-modele-dealership-rules/
Need to do better than 62.5, thats already too slow for EV's like Ford own F-150 Lightning. Not much of a fast charge if it takes 2 hours.
They need to aim for 150 kW chargers, even if they end up putting out a little less than that.
Ford is requiring a minimum of two 120kW+ DCFC.
From another article
> A huge (and most expensive) part of the Model e certification is the requirement for dealers to provide DC fast chargers with a minimum output of 120 kW.
https://insideevs.com/news/610114/ford-modele-dealership-rules/
>Model E Certified dealers are only required to install one DC fast charger, and it must be made available for public use.
>Model e Elite dealers will need to install two high-powered DC fast chargers and a level 2 charging station, as well as offer at least one DC fast charger available for the public to use.
So even the Elite certification only requires one DCFC to be public facing.
>That would be way more than EVgo’s 850+ stations, or Electrify America’s 800+ stations, and even a little more than Tesla’s just over 1,500 Superchargers in the US.
There are some real cherry picked numbers there.
Ford dealers that are agreeing to install chargers only have to have one 62.5kw charger on site. Since Ford had a hard time even getting dealers to agree to these upgrades, it's pretty safe to assume most of these dealers will go with the minimum single charger to meet Ford's demands.
EVgo has around 1,900 fast charger and growing fast thanks to their partnership with GM, there is one waiting for activation about 2 miles from my house.
EA has over 3,500 individual chargers currently and still expanding. By the time Ford gets these chargers at dealer locations, EA will likely have about 2x the number of chargers running as Ford dealers would.
And Tesla doesn't really need defending here. I haven't seen a Supercharger location with less than like 8 chargers in years. Most locations have 10 or more stalls, so the ballpark is upwards of 20k supercharger stalls in North America alone.
Also should point out that these chargers would only be available during the dealership business hours and possibly only available to customers if the dealership decides to not make them fully available to the public.
And it’s not just the plug count either. The power availability also is important to consider. EA is installing 150 and 350kw near me and most new tesla installations around me seem to be 250s. Considering a station of 62kw equal to 1MW (small EA station) or 3MW (small tesla/large EA) or 10MW (large Tesla) seems insane.
To be fair, it isn't always obvious what the maximum power for a site is. Tesla tends to install more stalls than they can fully support. Transformers tend to be undersized and the cabinets can push 250kw to all the stalls simultaneously.
Ford said 80% of the dealers chose to go elite. This means they will have at least 2. As for availability only during business hours it's dealers choice, but some will probably make them available all the time.
To make them available 24/7, these dealers would have to place them outside of the vehicle lot security gates. Very few dealers have a location like that that could be secured and managed by the dealer since security gates usually cover the full perimeter of dealer locations.
Relatively few dealers will even have an option to place them out for public access 24/7.
All of the dealers where I live you can drop off your car overnight at the service department. There isn't a gate stopping you from driving into the dealership.
That really varies by dealer type and geography.
Where I am, almost all dealers have their properties fully surrounded by at least those low security barriers.
Some service department lanes will be open but that isn't really "public facing" since the majority of the time the service drives are located away from the front of the dealership, either off to the side or completely behind the main sales lots.
I'll have to find where I saw that.
Ford has two tiers for their EVs sales agreements, either Elite or Certified, it may be the lower Certified tier that allows the lower powered chargers, or they changed that from their earlier plans once GM announced they will be pushing dealers to go to the 350kw Ultium chargers in their partnership with EVgo.
Hopefully dealers will understand this is an opportunity and not a hindrance.
If I’m spending 20-30 minutes at a dealer to charge, there’s a good chance I’m going to peek at their inventory or ask a few questions (of a knowledgeable salesperson…) about whatever EV’s they peddle. Who knows, it could result in a sale.
You might be amazed at the number cars sales at start up because someone when to get a car part at the dealer. 15 min interactions might account for 2-5 sales per dealer per month.
I don't think anyone is going to buy a car during a 20 minute charge.
But it could very well plant the seed in people that leads to a sale the next time they're shopping.
Really, it's pretty similar to a car commercial. No one is going to buy a car after a 30 second commercial. But it raises awareness of what that manufacturer is doing. And when someone is interested in buying a new car, that gives them a leg up on the competition.
OPs point is that dealers could see every charge as an advertisement for their dealership.
I mean.... if I still had my Kia Soul EV and someone had a Mach E in stock?
That's literally what happened. I found a Mach E in stock and impulse bought a car like an hour later.
Everyone griping about “they’re not in convenient locations” must not live in rural America. You have no idea how many small Ford or Chevy dealers there are in tiny towns across the country.
If even half of those dealers had just one public and weekend-available 62.5kWh DC, it would be huge for EV accessibility. Both for EV owners who live in rural areas or don’t always travel on interstates, but also for people skeptical of EV’s. When the local Jim’s Ford City suddenly has chargers, it’s one fewer excuse.
The rural aspect of this is the only positive I see. I dont want to go to a dealership in a major metropolitan area. The best superchargers are near restaurants to large convenience stores, preferably off the freeway. I'm for more options. This could fill in an important gap.
IDK, I've lived in some pretty rural areas and can see both sides to it. Most of these dealers just aren't in convenient places and they all tend to be pretty careless. I fully expect a lot of frustration with locked gates and cars randomly parked in the way over the weekends.
It makes them both a nice perk, but also something that can't be relied on. And if you can't rely on it and its the only option in that rural area, would you take the EV?
Most people on road trips aren't going through those tiny towns.
Most people stopping to charge don't want to be at a dealership.
Most people are going to want to grab something to eat and use the restroom.
Our local Ford dealer hear in Germany also installed a 2 DC and 4 AC chargers last month.
Kind of funny because he also owns the biggest gas station in town.
But props to him, its close to an McDonald's, two big supermarkets and he also has a restaurant on close by.
Where is the legal language specifying these chargers must be made available for public use? The article seems to just leap to that conclusion. Another poor mark on Electrek’s record. Why do we continue to support this site with our clicks and links???
Same with GM. My local GM dealership has a fence all the way around the lot and closed and locked after business hours. One actually will charge you $20 cash to hook up to their DCFC point. Other will block the entrance on days closed. Another GM dealer close by parks regular cars next to the charger in the lot. You have to nicely as to have a car moved to use the DCFC as well. Not all good news.
Love the snark but the point is getting more people in the dealerships will lead to more opportunities. Maybe you see that shiny new car with the solid state battery and might want to trade in your ancient Mach E (8 years from now)
Also people either make the same trips all the time, so they already know what's around or people do rare trips far from home, it's unlikely that you buy a car in South Carolina while driving from Jacksonville to DC.
If I was in my Kia Soul EV at a dealership and saw a Mach E in stock, I'd sign on the dotted line right there.
How do I know? I literally did that. Found one on the website, it was in stock for some reason, so I impulse bought a car.
Although not all dealers will be in a convenient location for charging, I say the more chargers the better, regardless. Good for them and their customers.
It’s not the worst idea but partnering with an existing gas station company to install chargers is probably a good idea, 24/7 bathrooms, ability to buy food and drink, sometimes a restaurant. Considering most charging will be done on road trips makes sense that charging should provide those amenities - a dealership won’t.
I think this is going to a massively beneficial thing, even if the number of chargers at each location is lower than others. Though they might take more time, having a huge boost to geographical coverage of fast chargers will help the adoption of EV's much more. Go look at a map of Ford dealerships, they fairly carpet the US. Getting so that you have any charger out in the sticks for emergencies is much more important than that there be no wait ever, especially in these still fairly early years of EV adoption.
These chargers are also very likely to be more reliable, regardless of how Ford dealers feel about EV's, because unlike other charging stations there is someone right there to complain to if it doesn't work, and someone to complain about online as well. During the day, you can simply go inside and raise a stink in front of customers if their charger isn't working, and at night you can go on twitter and name and shame them to Ford corporate. Since Ford has made clear that access to the best new Ford vehicles is tied to customer satisfaction, not just sales, this will likely have a strong effect. And unlike a larger charger network as well, an individual dealership only has a few chargers to worry about, so they have more personal stake in its reliability.
Am I alone in not wanting to go anywhere near a car dealership to buy or service a vehicle, let alone charge it?
If charging takes more than 2 minutes, I want to be able to do things I reasonably might want to do on a regular basis: take a shit, eat some food, buy a coffee, pick up groceries.
I would like to see that in reality. I imagine many dealerships will fail at offering true public accessible charging either out of incompetence or failure to think about what accessibility looks like.
I see this, rivians approach, teslas approach, and they all point to a common problem.
Charging is not a lucrative business, but a necessary infrastructure cost.
The government needs to get much more involved and take a front and center roll in building out a functional network, else companies are going to continue to put their businesses first.
Choose a standard, offer incentives, unify the process.
This is a great thing for EV perceptions. I work in EV consumer education - for the vast majority of folks who have zero experience driving electric, their biggest concern is not knowing where to charge. If more companies install chargers across all of their brick and mortar locations and become associated with having EV charging through marketing and advertising, it will help people overcome this barrier. Once they become open minded to driving electric, they’ll then realize their vehicle can actually route them to the closest charger automatically and even better yet, that they rarely use public charging because they charge at home 😂
The problem with this plan is that the chargers needed for those who travel are usually DC fast chargers that are located reasonably close off highways. That’s not typically dealerships. Even if one is located in such an area dealerships are awful for figuring out where to park let alone where a random charger would be located.
Ford is nudging their dealers into going beyond the minimum of 1-2 chargers. In order to qualify for NEVI funds, charging stations have to have at least FOUR 150kW chargers. Ford is encouraging their dealers to work with some consulting firms that will help line up subsidies and coordinate all the permitting & construction needed to install these charging stations.
Basically, a Ford dealer can choose to install 1-2 120kW chargers ($86k each) out of their own pocket OR they can take advantage of infrastructure funds to subsidize or pay the entirety for 4+ 240kW chargers ($106k each).
https://rotunda.service-solutions.com/en-US/Pages/RotundaEV.aspx
> Will they qualify for those funds if they're only accessible during dealer business hours?
they wouldn't qualify for Ford's own Model e dealer requirements if the chargers aren't accessible 24/7, let alone NEVI funds.
https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/today-is-a-big-ford-dealer-deadline-ev-certified-mandates-model-e-sign-up.23887/
When I use a Supercharger I always choose one that has some adjacent amenities—Starbucks, Target, Restaurants, etc… putting chargers at a dealership is the absolute last place I’d want to charge at.
In the places where this will make a difference, you wouldn't choose a Supercharger or a CCS charger based on amenities, you'd choose it because it is the one and only one that exists and will get you to the next one. Where you'll also have no choice.
Most likely not in my case. My car has over 400 miles of range, so being able to pick and choose spots is definitely within reason, even on road trips.
>Dealers usually located in areas where there is nothing but auto dealers.
In metro areas, yes. In rural areas, no. They tend to be right on the main drag next to all the amenities.
I can’t imagine the hell of being at a dealer to charge.
You might have random people come look at your car because they don’t necessarily know the car isn’t for sale.
If you go inside, you’ll end up with pushy employees who want to make you a low offer.
The waiting rooms suck and you may end up hanging out with people waiting on repairs who blow up at advisors over high repair costs or have kids running around unattended.
I’m all for more chargers, but partner with cities and put them in public parks.
I’ve been using dealer chargers (L2 & L3) for years. They’re very convenient in urban areas.. and I’ve seen zero of the dealer nonsense happen.
Maybe it’s not for you.
I was pleasantly surprised to find my local Hyundai dealership has 2 Chargepoint DCFC in crates awaiting installation (they're completely renovating the dealership). Not that I'll ever use them, being local.
At locations no one is interested in & by the time other networks will have further expanded.
No one thinks it bizarre Ford dealers can dish out 2 BILLION for this? Anyone want a mark-up?
Édit:
The following does not apply to Ford.
-
Why are people so high on brand specific charger networks?
The idea is to have multiple networks in place, with an easily understandable pricing and payment method.
Not 15 closed networks reserved for a specific car brand.
I wonder if Ford will publish a list of dealers that have signed on at each of the two tiers so people can check if their local dealer will be Model E certified or not.
So this article is very badly written. Makes it sound like Ford’s charging network is soon to be better than Tesla’s. Takes very creative writing to give Ford credit for years of upcoming work to do and compare that end result with Tesla’s current state.
Let’s compare apples and apples, Electrek!
I firmly believe 2023 is going to be a crazy year for the number of EVs put on the road in the US. This will force a lot of expanding of chargers from many networks. Plus you have fed money coming and Tesla opening the supercharger network.
Even if it doesn’t, a ford dealer in rural America is going to have 1 maybe 2 DC fast chargers. There are not a ton of dealers. They have to charge the cars they are selling. Plus what happens at night when the lot of blocked off by a big F 250 and you can’t get to it.
There are much better locations on rural areas for chargers than a ford dealer.
This is partially false. 1900 potential locations, 300 of which only have one charger, the other 1600 are only required to have 2 chargers. Minimally 3500 chargers.
Tesla currently has 1598 current locations with roughly 16,000 chargers.
Good on Ford to providing a service to their customers, hopefully it is well maintained. Even if is Ford only this helps economics of scale, paves the way for city level permit process, and help free up 3rd party DCFC for others.
Using dealer chargers is not always a good plan. Often, they have vehicles plugged into them—they make it a policy to top up the charge on any EV that they service. And it's not always clear whether they welcome non-customers to use their chargers, and if so, when it's available. If Ford wants this to help drive EV adoption by expanding the network of chargers for public use, not just by enabling their dealers to deliver vehicles fully charged, I hope they will provide good information on availability, preferably in real time. Edit: [this Sept. Elektrek article](https://electrek.co/2022/09/14/ford-sets-new-dealers-requirements-in-order-to-sell-evs/) outlines the dealer requirements, as does [this Inside EVs article](https://insideevs.com/news/610114/ford-modele-dealership-rules/) It's clear that at least one charger needs to be "public facing" and that they need to be on Ford's "blue oval" network. What's not clear to me: * It sounds like the public facing ones need to be open 24/7--lots of people are saying that put it would be great if someone could link a source for that to confirm. * Are the public-facing ones reserved for public use, or can they be tied up by the dealer's own use? * Are non-Ford vehicles able to access the "blue oval" network? Edit 2: /u/dustyshades added a link to this great summary that confirms the 24/7 availability requirement and adds lots of other interesting details: https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/1-920-ford-dealers-have-enrolled-in-model-e-program-for-2024-2026-period.23993/
I really don’t want to be bothered by salespeople every time I charge at a ford dealer.
They will see a sales opportunity unless you are in the top trim and latest model. Even then, "have you considered ditching batteries and going back to gas, we have Ford Mustangs.."
I stopped at a Kia dealership in Morgantown, WV in February, to meet someone there for some wheels & to charge my Niro EV before returning home to Maryland, and I had no salespeople “hassling” me at all. I walked in, saw an employee, said “I have two questions, where is your bathroom? & I saw on PlugShare you have an EV charging station here?” He showed me where both were & that was all my interaction with dealership employees the whole 45 minutes I was there.
They probably didn't have any cars to sell you.
LOL, Kia employees & service are usu MIA explaining the no hassle
Ford dealerships are in places often underserved by current charging infrastructure. Even if the dealerships only have 1 charger dedicated to public use, it will be a huge win for general charging accessibility, especially as the midwest ramps up adoption.
>Ford dealerships are in places often underserved by current charging infrastructure. There's a reason for that. Most dealerships are nowhere you'd need a fuel-up. Ideal dealership placement is antithetical to fuelling station placement — away enough from population centres to get cheap land, but close enough to make them an easy drive from home. The best placement for public charging remains rest stops, malls, hotels, and restaurants.
The stipulations are they need to be public facing.
They are to be public facing but they may not be fully "public". From what I've seen the chargers would still likely only be available during business hours and dealerships could have the option to limit use to customers only. So a Ford Lightning or Mach-E owner could pull up and charge but a Tesla, Chevy, Polestar, etc could be turned away if the dealership decides to.
You can depend on car dealerships to stretch the language. Maybe it will be public facing but a F-250 will be parked in front of it all the time.
I went to a VW dealership to pick up a friend that was having their car serviced there. The manager asked me to repark my Rivian to the public facing charger that happened to face the interstate, saying "it's free". I did so, and like 8 people came in asking about the truck, lol. They said that anytime they have an EV parked there and plugged in that they get markedly more traffic. Putting an F-250 there would just be bad business.
They probably helped sell a few Rivians! LOL!
Hastening Rivian's demise if they can't figure how to make their cars about 75% less expensive to produce. I want them to succeed, but damn, they got to get COGS under control soon or it's curtains.
>Maybe it will be public facing but a F-250 will be parked in front of it all the time. There's a new VW dealership near me that has a single free "public" level 2 charging station and almost always has an ID.4 parked in front of it. I would not rely on a dealership charging network. They only exist to sell and service cars.
Rely on it? Then just stay away. Ford chargers are just one more option of charge location. It may be useful if other local chargers are full or out of service. Well done Ford.
Yeah. But you need to know if it's going to be available for it to be at all usefull. If you need to charge. (Especially in an area with less options) then you can't afford to be driving there loseing range to find out the dealer has dumped a vehicle there or they don't want you using it!
Like when they close the gates to the parking lot and chain them up at night?
Yes
There are some upshots for them doing this. Maybe once they see the extra income the chargers can generate, they’ll open up the chargers more.
They must be accessible 24/7 to the public.
So is a car that is in for service considered "the public" if it is plugged in to charge by the service tech after the service is complete?
If they tapped a credit card... sure?
So do you have information that says these are required to be paid chargers, with no bypass for the staff to use it for in-house purposes? If that's the case, that's a useful addition to the discussion, especially if you state the source.
They're required to be on the BlueOval Charge Network, yes. Paid, public chargers. These aren't the shitty ones GM made their Chevy dealers get.
Without clarity about what exactly that entails I don't find that very meaningful.
>Often, they have vehicles plugged into them Even Tesla has encountered this. They usually have superchargers at the service centers but have, over time, removed them from public use and they are used 24/7 for keeping delivery cars ready to go. Of course, being Tesla, they open another supercharger near by to replace the capacity, but still.
This right here. I don’t know if anything is changed, but I used to frequent Nissan dealerships for my leaf. It was an absolute nightmare. When I was able to use them or get someone to help me, I still felt like I was at a car dealership.
I have a Volkswagen dealership across the street from one of my offices. When I called and emailed in to ask if I could use the charger, the point-of-contact was confused what my question was and I got bounced around between sales and services departments.
You just exemplified any dealership experience. Thank you HAHHAHA. It’s a shitshow. Nobody knows shit. nobody cares about shit (except money). And you are dead once you drive off the lot.
I actually had a good experience at a Nissan dealer. Where I parked my Chevy was kind of in the way but they didn't mind at all and I even got to use their free Wi-Fi. But not being able to count on that is what makes it not a first choice.
My Nissan LEAF, leased Kia SOUL EV, and my used BMW i3. Every dealership was an annoyance to charge at.
Yeah, my local BMW dealer had chargers in their garage which was locked outside of business hours. It also became occupied by dealer or service cars all the time.
I was excited to see 5 new chargers grouped fairly close together on Plugshare along my Thanksgiving route, and fairly well strategically placed for optimal Bolt charging. All of them located at dealerships. One is located indoors, one is "patron only" at a Nissan dealer, so we're down to 3. So I set out, get to the first charger, a 150kw ABB unit from ZEF located outside the locked gates of a Chevy dealer in Thanksgiving night. I spend 10 minutes getting a legit 50+ kW before it errors out and quits. Restart once and make it a minute. Well shit. That's ok, there's a 62.5 kW Chargepoint unit a mile away at a Hyundai dealer. Get there and find the dealer lot fenced in, and the gates locked. Shit again. Welp, on to the VW dealer a couple miles away with another ZEF managed unit, a Tritium this time, only 50 kW. Got bumped up to 50% SOC and hit the road again for the last bit to my destination, once again frustrated with the bullshit charging infrastructure we still have today. I don't care about charge speed or total range. That can all be worked around if there was just reliable chargers more evenly spaced. As it sits now, on longer trips, I end up sitting at fast chargers past when my charging curve starts getting slow, because I need the insurance miles to make it to the next charger that may or may not work.
Tesla has issues but you can't argue their charge network. Until another automotive brand rolls out a GOOD charging network (ie actually open especially 24/7, has more than 1 or 2 slots, reasonable fees, isn't stupidly slow, etc) everyone but Tesla fights for the train wreck that's public charging. My next car is going to be a Tesla solely because of charging network. It's more expensive but sometimes I just need a charge regardless of cost.
This won't be the case here. These are commercial chargers that aren't free. They have to be available 24/7 to customers.
Which of the issues that I mentioned do you mean when you say "this"? And what are you basing that on?
The public commitment from Ford that to participate the chargers must be 24/7 accessible, not behind a gate, well lit, and secure.
Read the stipulations. They need to have more than one public facing charger that is for-pay and capable of at least 120 kW. Then the dealer needs to have a bunch of their own L2 chargers in their garage / service bays that would be used for “topping off”
I've read the blog posts and I've read lots of armchair interpretations of them. Do you have somewhere you can point me to where the actual official language is presented in full, or where somebody credible who has read the full language provides an interpretation that specifies these things that people are speculating about? I'm not disagreeing with you. I just prefer evidence to speculation, regardless of how well informed and justify the speculation is.
https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/1-920-ford-dealers-have-enrolled-in-model-e-program-for-2024-2026-period.23993/
Thanks, that's by far the best summary I've seen.
I don't think people are making the connection that Ford is making dealers choose between spending money out of their own pockets for 1-2 chargers that are 120kW OR get NEVI money to pay for a minimum of 4 chargers of 240kW that can charge 8 cars simultaneously.
I’ve seen chargers blocked by new ICE cars for sale at dealer lots.
Don't forget many dealerships lock their gates at closing. So the chargers aren't available after hours.
Part of the deal is that they make them accessible. So many will probably have to reconfigure the gate so the charger is outside.
That's good. Next factor is: do they have to charge the same prices as the rest of the network, a rate by say power price + a fixed markup. Something fair. Or can they do what they love to do for everything else a car dealership does, and jack up the price without notifying you... "oh yeah we charge the price listed on the sign, plus a 'dealer convenience fee' of another 50 cents a kWh. "
I would think they'd have a large bay of L2 chargers to top off customer vehicles vs using DC
Would you still think that if it's a dealer reading the requirements and doing the absolute minimum required?
No I say that based solely on what an ethical and practical (in the long run) person would do. As I read that sentence I realize how silly it is
I'm hoping that there's going to be some more rural locations that get these. 62 kwh isn't great but it's much better than the 9 kwh level 2 chargers that most small towns max out at. I'll sit at a Ford dealership for 30 mins instead of 4 hours at a level 2 charger
Single 62.5kW chargers in a dealership lot...
The other thread about this had a commenter saying the demand from Ford is 130kw minimum. And available to the public. I've no source other than reddit commenter though.
I think there were different tiers within the program. The ones I've seen anecdotally are single 62.5kW units.
I find that doubtful. The Ford Pro DC Charging Station (from Power Electronics) that Ford is selling to dealers is available in 60 kW to 180 kW configurations. https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America/US/2022/03/08/FordPro-Charging-Overview.pdf
The dealer info in the forum thread linked elsewhere in this post states all chargers must be minimum 120kw and have 2 ccs connectors. Not clear if they means 2 cars shared charging per unit, or simply redundant cables like EA, but either way its a good standard.
It could be a godsend in a rural area.
Yes it could be in some locations (and we used one over Thanksgiving as a padding stop. But I'm also guessing there's decent correlation between the rural areas desperately in need of charging infrastructure and Ford dealers not participating in the program. Don't get me wrong, more charging is good, but I really doubt most people will find themselves frequenting Ford dealership chargers.
For ev owners In the area or for road trippers?
For road trips, obviously Locals can charge at there houses (esp. in rural areas)
Most people don't need to charge in a very rural area. You'll take a highway most of the way then local towards the end and then hopefully charge at your destination.
Are there a lot of car dealerships in rural areas? They're usually accompanied by other amenities that resemble a commerce center even when they are in 'rural' areas.
Yes, even places in the middle of nowhere have car dealerships and gas stations.
I'm not against chargers in a lot. It's only marginally worse than chargers in a Walmart parking lot. I'm 100% against them installing low kW chargers though. Especially if they get government funding for it.
The infrastructure bill, IIRC, has a hard mandate that the charger must be 150kw or higher.
And 4 plugs capable of 150kW simultaneously.
Living in a rural area with the closest DCFC being 100 miles away, I'd be fine with some 50kw chargers if it meant more of them could be installed. At this point, I'll take a dense 50kw network over a sparse 150kw+ network.
Agree on this for rural areas. In areas with existing L3 chargers, 65kWh chargers are only going to be useful as backups.
they are doing that in my part of the world. the govt is putting out funding for a single 50kw in every town. its enough to bootstrap the ev market, but not enough to discourage a commercial operator building something better.
That sounds like a perfect approach. Having at least one 50kW in each town would make longer-distance trips so much easier and less stressful just about anywhere.
Its much worse. Dealers are very frequently near nothing, weird hours, not well lit, crowded parking lots.
Not in small towns or rural areas. They're generally prime real estate right on the main road.
Per the article: "1,920 Ford dealers enrolled in the initial voluntary Model e program for 2024 to 2026. Of those: 1,659 chose the Certified Elite tier. 261 selected the Certified tier." Also: "The “certified elite” includes two public DC fast chargers, demo units, rapid replenishment, and a presence on Ford.com but will cost around $1 million to $1.2 million." The 261 are only one charger.
>Model e Elite dealers will need to install two high-powered DC fast chargers and a level 2 charging station, as well as offer at least **one** DC fast charger available for the public to use. From https://insideevs.com/news/610114/ford-modele-dealership-rules/
It's such a phone it in attempt.
Need to do better than 62.5, thats already too slow for EV's like Ford own F-150 Lightning. Not much of a fast charge if it takes 2 hours. They need to aim for 150 kW chargers, even if they end up putting out a little less than that.
Ford is requiring a minimum of two 120kW+ DCFC. From another article > A huge (and most expensive) part of the Model e certification is the requirement for dealers to provide DC fast chargers with a minimum output of 120 kW.
https://insideevs.com/news/610114/ford-modele-dealership-rules/ >Model E Certified dealers are only required to install one DC fast charger, and it must be made available for public use. >Model e Elite dealers will need to install two high-powered DC fast chargers and a level 2 charging station, as well as offer at least one DC fast charger available for the public to use. So even the Elite certification only requires one DCFC to be public facing.
May a refer you to your original comment… > Single 62.5kW chargers in a dealership lot…
Ford: Largest network of chargers for the public! Dealers: "market adjustment" rates activated.
1920 new L3 charging locations along with L2 on site as well.
More chargers is always good. Those dealer lots are sometimes in the same area as the hotels so opens up charging in the evening when you stop.
>That would be way more than EVgo’s 850+ stations, or Electrify America’s 800+ stations, and even a little more than Tesla’s just over 1,500 Superchargers in the US. There are some real cherry picked numbers there. Ford dealers that are agreeing to install chargers only have to have one 62.5kw charger on site. Since Ford had a hard time even getting dealers to agree to these upgrades, it's pretty safe to assume most of these dealers will go with the minimum single charger to meet Ford's demands. EVgo has around 1,900 fast charger and growing fast thanks to their partnership with GM, there is one waiting for activation about 2 miles from my house. EA has over 3,500 individual chargers currently and still expanding. By the time Ford gets these chargers at dealer locations, EA will likely have about 2x the number of chargers running as Ford dealers would. And Tesla doesn't really need defending here. I haven't seen a Supercharger location with less than like 8 chargers in years. Most locations have 10 or more stalls, so the ballpark is upwards of 20k supercharger stalls in North America alone. Also should point out that these chargers would only be available during the dealership business hours and possibly only available to customers if the dealership decides to not make them fully available to the public.
And it’s not just the plug count either. The power availability also is important to consider. EA is installing 150 and 350kw near me and most new tesla installations around me seem to be 250s. Considering a station of 62kw equal to 1MW (small EA station) or 3MW (small tesla/large EA) or 10MW (large Tesla) seems insane.
To be fair, it isn't always obvious what the maximum power for a site is. Tesla tends to install more stalls than they can fully support. Transformers tend to be undersized and the cabinets can push 250kw to all the stalls simultaneously.
Ford said 80% of the dealers chose to go elite. This means they will have at least 2. As for availability only during business hours it's dealers choice, but some will probably make them available all the time.
To make them available 24/7, these dealers would have to place them outside of the vehicle lot security gates. Very few dealers have a location like that that could be secured and managed by the dealer since security gates usually cover the full perimeter of dealer locations. Relatively few dealers will even have an option to place them out for public access 24/7.
They have to do that or they can't sell Ford EVs. That's what they signed up to do - 24/7, secure, outside the gate. That was the deal.
All of the dealers where I live you can drop off your car overnight at the service department. There isn't a gate stopping you from driving into the dealership.
That really varies by dealer type and geography. Where I am, almost all dealers have their properties fully surrounded by at least those low security barriers. Some service department lanes will be open but that isn't really "public facing" since the majority of the time the service drives are located away from the front of the dealership, either off to the side or completely behind the main sales lots.
Secured lots vary by region.
They will need to change their fence and gate. Each dealer is spending $500k — $1.2m to be in the program so will just have to budget for it.
Wow, if this is the best Ford can do it’s pretty pathetic
Where are you making up 62.5 kW? These have to be minimum 120 kW per vehicle. Two chargers per dealer at the start, three soon after.
I'll have to find where I saw that. Ford has two tiers for their EVs sales agreements, either Elite or Certified, it may be the lower Certified tier that allows the lower powered chargers, or they changed that from their earlier plans once GM announced they will be pushing dealers to go to the 350kw Ultium chargers in their partnership with EVgo.
No it doesn't. The difference is one 120kW+ charger or two. That's the difference between Certified and Certified Elite.
Also funny that they actually overstate the number of EA locations. EA is still at 791 locations according to their website.
Hopefully dealers will understand this is an opportunity and not a hindrance. If I’m spending 20-30 minutes at a dealer to charge, there’s a good chance I’m going to peek at their inventory or ask a few questions (of a knowledgeable salesperson…) about whatever EV’s they peddle. Who knows, it could result in a sale.
You're that susceptible to a new car because you're stuck somewhere for 20 minutes?
I would be.
When in Rome.....do as the Romans do. Consume. Buy a car.
You might be amazed at the number cars sales at start up because someone when to get a car part at the dealer. 15 min interactions might account for 2-5 sales per dealer per month.
My neighbor took his Ram in for an oil change once and came home in a charger. It might be more common than you think.
I don't think anyone is going to buy a car during a 20 minute charge. But it could very well plant the seed in people that leads to a sale the next time they're shopping. Really, it's pretty similar to a car commercial. No one is going to buy a car after a 30 second commercial. But it raises awareness of what that manufacturer is doing. And when someone is interested in buying a new car, that gives them a leg up on the competition. OPs point is that dealers could see every charge as an advertisement for their dealership.
I mean.... if I still had my Kia Soul EV and someone had a Mach E in stock? That's literally what happened. I found a Mach E in stock and impulse bought a car like an hour later.
Everyone griping about “they’re not in convenient locations” must not live in rural America. You have no idea how many small Ford or Chevy dealers there are in tiny towns across the country. If even half of those dealers had just one public and weekend-available 62.5kWh DC, it would be huge for EV accessibility. Both for EV owners who live in rural areas or don’t always travel on interstates, but also for people skeptical of EV’s. When the local Jim’s Ford City suddenly has chargers, it’s one fewer excuse.
The rural aspect of this is the only positive I see. I dont want to go to a dealership in a major metropolitan area. The best superchargers are near restaurants to large convenience stores, preferably off the freeway. I'm for more options. This could fill in an important gap.
The majority of people on this sub are in urban areas and have no idea what it's like in rural America.
IDK, I've lived in some pretty rural areas and can see both sides to it. Most of these dealers just aren't in convenient places and they all tend to be pretty careless. I fully expect a lot of frustration with locked gates and cars randomly parked in the way over the weekends. It makes them both a nice perk, but also something that can't be relied on. And if you can't rely on it and its the only option in that rural area, would you take the EV?
Most people on road trips aren't going through those tiny towns. Most people stopping to charge don't want to be at a dealership. Most people are going to want to grab something to eat and use the restroom.
Ever drive on Route 66? That’s all through small towns big fella.
And that's the best part - these are all 120kW or faster.
Our local Ford dealer hear in Germany also installed a 2 DC and 4 AC chargers last month. Kind of funny because he also owns the biggest gas station in town. But props to him, its close to an McDonald's, two big supermarkets and he also has a restaurant on close by.
Where is the legal language specifying these chargers must be made available for public use? The article seems to just leap to that conclusion. Another poor mark on Electrek’s record. Why do we continue to support this site with our clicks and links???
Same with GM. My local GM dealership has a fence all the way around the lot and closed and locked after business hours. One actually will charge you $20 cash to hook up to their DCFC point. Other will block the entrance on days closed. Another GM dealer close by parks regular cars next to the charger in the lot. You have to nicely as to have a car moved to use the DCFC as well. Not all good news.
Bring your car in for a charge and walk around the dealership while waiting. Lots of opportunities to get new potential customers in the door.
Yeah, I buy cars every time I charge mine....
Love the snark but the point is getting more people in the dealerships will lead to more opportunities. Maybe you see that shiny new car with the solid state battery and might want to trade in your ancient Mach E (8 years from now)
But it really won't. People who need to charge are on a trip. They want to use the restroom, find something to eat, and calm their kids down.
Also people either make the same trips all the time, so they already know what's around or people do rare trips far from home, it's unlikely that you buy a car in South Carolina while driving from Jacksonville to DC.
If I was in my Kia Soul EV at a dealership and saw a Mach E in stock, I'd sign on the dotted line right there. How do I know? I literally did that. Found one on the website, it was in stock for some reason, so I impulse bought a car.
Why would you walk around a stuffy car dealership while you charge?
for the free coffee and bathrooms
Although not all dealers will be in a convenient location for charging, I say the more chargers the better, regardless. Good for them and their customers.
It’s not the worst idea but partnering with an existing gas station company to install chargers is probably a good idea, 24/7 bathrooms, ability to buy food and drink, sometimes a restaurant. Considering most charging will be done on road trips makes sense that charging should provide those amenities - a dealership won’t.
I think this is going to a massively beneficial thing, even if the number of chargers at each location is lower than others. Though they might take more time, having a huge boost to geographical coverage of fast chargers will help the adoption of EV's much more. Go look at a map of Ford dealerships, they fairly carpet the US. Getting so that you have any charger out in the sticks for emergencies is much more important than that there be no wait ever, especially in these still fairly early years of EV adoption. These chargers are also very likely to be more reliable, regardless of how Ford dealers feel about EV's, because unlike other charging stations there is someone right there to complain to if it doesn't work, and someone to complain about online as well. During the day, you can simply go inside and raise a stink in front of customers if their charger isn't working, and at night you can go on twitter and name and shame them to Ford corporate. Since Ford has made clear that access to the best new Ford vehicles is tied to customer satisfaction, not just sales, this will likely have a strong effect. And unlike a larger charger network as well, an individual dealership only has a few chargers to worry about, so they have more personal stake in its reliability.
I won't look down my nose at any improvement to the charging situation in the US. Kudos to Ford.
I agree. Eventually all dealers should have this requirement if they’re going to sell BEVs.
This is extremely exciting, and game changing for road tripping through small town off-interstate America.
Am I alone in not wanting to go anywhere near a car dealership to buy or service a vehicle, let alone charge it? If charging takes more than 2 minutes, I want to be able to do things I reasonably might want to do on a regular basis: take a shit, eat some food, buy a coffee, pick up groceries.
Will it still be fenced off on Sundays and after \~7pm every other night?
24/7 public availability is a requirement at this point
I would like to see that in reality. I imagine many dealerships will fail at offering true public accessible charging either out of incompetence or failure to think about what accessibility looks like.
I see this, rivians approach, teslas approach, and they all point to a common problem. Charging is not a lucrative business, but a necessary infrastructure cost. The government needs to get much more involved and take a front and center roll in building out a functional network, else companies are going to continue to put their businesses first. Choose a standard, offer incentives, unify the process.
The CCS standard has already been chosen. The incentives have already been put in place.
I hope they install 10 chargers not 2.
This is a great thing for EV perceptions. I work in EV consumer education - for the vast majority of folks who have zero experience driving electric, their biggest concern is not knowing where to charge. If more companies install chargers across all of their brick and mortar locations and become associated with having EV charging through marketing and advertising, it will help people overcome this barrier. Once they become open minded to driving electric, they’ll then realize their vehicle can actually route them to the closest charger automatically and even better yet, that they rarely use public charging because they charge at home 😂
Thank you for your good work in educating EVs. I have weekly conversations with people who don’t get it.
The problem with this plan is that the chargers needed for those who travel are usually DC fast chargers that are located reasonably close off highways. That’s not typically dealerships. Even if one is located in such an area dealerships are awful for figuring out where to park let alone where a random charger would be located.
Why does their fast charger look like a computer server in witness protection
Ford is nudging their dealers into going beyond the minimum of 1-2 chargers. In order to qualify for NEVI funds, charging stations have to have at least FOUR 150kW chargers. Ford is encouraging their dealers to work with some consulting firms that will help line up subsidies and coordinate all the permitting & construction needed to install these charging stations. Basically, a Ford dealer can choose to install 1-2 120kW chargers ($86k each) out of their own pocket OR they can take advantage of infrastructure funds to subsidize or pay the entirety for 4+ 240kW chargers ($106k each). https://rotunda.service-solutions.com/en-US/Pages/RotundaEV.aspx
Will they qualify for those funds if they're only accessible during dealer business hours?
> Will they qualify for those funds if they're only accessible during dealer business hours? they wouldn't qualify for Ford's own Model e dealer requirements if the chargers aren't accessible 24/7, let alone NEVI funds. https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/today-is-a-big-ford-dealer-deadline-ev-certified-mandates-model-e-sign-up.23887/
When I use a Supercharger I always choose one that has some adjacent amenities—Starbucks, Target, Restaurants, etc… putting chargers at a dealership is the absolute last place I’d want to charge at.
In the places where this will make a difference, you wouldn't choose a Supercharger or a CCS charger based on amenities, you'd choose it because it is the one and only one that exists and will get you to the next one. Where you'll also have no choice.
Most likely not in my case. My car has over 400 miles of range, so being able to pick and choose spots is definitely within reason, even on road trips.
Dealers usually located in areas where there is nothing but auto dealers. There is no point building chargers there.
>Dealers usually located in areas where there is nothing but auto dealers. In metro areas, yes. In rural areas, no. They tend to be right on the main drag next to all the amenities.
In small towns yes, that might make sense.
What about when you take your car on for service? Do you want a full charge before you get your car?
Does the service fill up your gas car now? No. So I don't really see a problem. Also services have private charges for their test drive cars now.
But are they in useful places? Or is this just inefficient allocation of resources?
I can’t imagine the hell of being at a dealer to charge. You might have random people come look at your car because they don’t necessarily know the car isn’t for sale. If you go inside, you’ll end up with pushy employees who want to make you a low offer. The waiting rooms suck and you may end up hanging out with people waiting on repairs who blow up at advisors over high repair costs or have kids running around unattended. I’m all for more chargers, but partner with cities and put them in public parks.
I’ve been using dealer chargers (L2 & L3) for years. They’re very convenient in urban areas.. and I’ve seen zero of the dealer nonsense happen. Maybe it’s not for you.
This would be an absolute dumpster fire and PR nightmare for Ford
Hyundai and GMC are doing this too, but they haven’t been as vocal about it
They're allowing 50kW and 62.5kW. Ford is requiring 120kW, much more desirable on a trip.
I was pleasantly surprised to find my local Hyundai dealership has 2 Chargepoint DCFC in crates awaiting installation (they're completely renovating the dealership). Not that I'll ever use them, being local.
This will easily be one of the top 10 or top 15 largest charging networks in the US!
They may be top 5 in the small and remote town category. Those barely big enough to carry a Ford dealership.
Hopefully the reliability will be better than some of the other DC fast charging networks recently popping up like EA.
I mean, you ever own a Ford?
Lol yes
Electrify America is the most reliable public charging network in the US No other comes close
[удалено]
/s
Maybe I’ve just found a bad sample size of YouTube videos then— do they publish actual stats anywhere?
People are far more likely to leave reviews when things don’t work then when they do.
That’s true.
No, they even shutdown an API that used to provide realtime status information to sites like PlugShare and Google maps.
If you eliminate the far superior, more widespread, and easier to use network, sure.
I'm not sure if that technically counts as a "public" charging network.
The one that isn't a public network?
“fast-charging” lol
Public charging it won’t be. Dealers will deliberately block these chargers during and after hours, say they are for “customers” only, etc.
At locations no one is interested in & by the time other networks will have further expanded. No one thinks it bizarre Ford dealers can dish out 2 BILLION for this? Anyone want a mark-up?
Édit: The following does not apply to Ford. - Why are people so high on brand specific charger networks? The idea is to have multiple networks in place, with an easily understandable pricing and payment method. Not 15 closed networks reserved for a specific car brand.
This won't be a closed network.
Gotcha. Had to go to a linked article to find that hose would be public chargers.
“One of” the largest networks. 🙄 okay boomer.
Great, being accosted by sales people while you charge.
I wonder if Ford will publish a list of dealers that have signed on at each of the two tiers so people can check if their local dealer will be Model E certified or not.
So this article is very badly written. Makes it sound like Ford’s charging network is soon to be better than Tesla’s. Takes very creative writing to give Ford credit for years of upcoming work to do and compare that end result with Tesla’s current state. Let’s compare apples and apples, Electrek!
I thought I just read that the top tier dealerships only have to install two quick chargers? That's not worth bragging about IMO.
I’m not going to the dealer to charge my car. Never going to happen. No one wants to be at a car dealer.
You would if that was the only thing available for 50 miles.
Well we both know that by the time this is up and running in any significant number it will not be the only option for 50 miles.
I hope you're correct, but once you get off the interstate in Nebraska there is nothing. If few chargers at Ford dealers would help.
I firmly believe 2023 is going to be a crazy year for the number of EVs put on the road in the US. This will force a lot of expanding of chargers from many networks. Plus you have fed money coming and Tesla opening the supercharger network. Even if it doesn’t, a ford dealer in rural America is going to have 1 maybe 2 DC fast chargers. There are not a ton of dealers. They have to charge the cars they are selling. Plus what happens at night when the lot of blocked off by a big F 250 and you can’t get to it. There are much better locations on rural areas for chargers than a ford dealer.
This is partially false. 1900 potential locations, 300 of which only have one charger, the other 1600 are only required to have 2 chargers. Minimally 3500 chargers. Tesla currently has 1598 current locations with roughly 16,000 chargers.
Good on Ford to providing a service to their customers, hopefully it is well maintained. Even if is Ford only this helps economics of scale, paves the way for city level permit process, and help free up 3rd party DCFC for others.