Yahoo Autos Guilty as slowly charged: Electrify America site lazily energizes a Ford Mustang Mach-E
As Ford touts its electric Mustang Mach-E, the company is also promoting its owners’ access to an existing public-charging network built by ChargePoint and Electrify America. Ford calls the network, with some 13,500 stations and 35,000 total plugs, the nation’s largest.
This is a welcome start, including a smartly designed “FordPass” phone app designed for easy, pay-as-you-go access to the network. But not every charging network is created equal, as suggested by my underwhelming, time-sucking experience with Mach-E charging.
First: Unlike with Tesla’s vast Supercharger network, only a tiny fraction of FordPass’ purported 35,000 plugs support DC fast charging. The vast majority remain 240-volt Level 2 chargers -- ideal for overnight home charging, but nearly useless in my book for public fill-ups, unless you’re actually spending six or eight hours on interstate bathroom breaks or shopping at Whole Foods. Secondly, where many Tesla owners continue to receive a year of Supercharging (and previously, “unlimited” free charging) as a perk and incentive to buy, Ford is offering only 250 kilowatts of free DC juice, enough for three to five fill-ups.
I would have been thrilled to pay anything for a fast top-off when I pulled the Mustang Mach-E Premium AWD — with 60 miles of remaining range — into a Target store in Clifton, N.J., on a miserable, rainy night in December. It’s one of nearly a dozen Electrify America (EA) stations in New Jersey, as the Volkswagen-owned EA expands a DC network whose chargers range from 50 kilowatts to a mighty 350 kilowatts. I drove miles out of my way just to check out one of EA’s 150-kilowatt machines, eager to see if the ‘Stang SUV (with an official 270-mile range) could really add 47 miles of range in just 10 minutes on the plug. Ford claims a Mach-E in rear-drive, 300-mile-range form will juice even faster, adding 61 miles in 10 minutes.
The reality at this Target was so wildly off-target that I might as well have gone inside to load up shopping carts with housewares and snacks. Pulling up, I was met with one of the most impressive-looking (non-Tesla) charging arrays I’ve seen in America: Six tall, Electrify America chargers stood sentry, each brandishing two plug-in arms, for a total of 12 DC outlets. (One was out of commission, so make that 10 outlets). Their user-friendly touchscreens flashed ads for Ewan MacGregor’s latest motorcycling adventure. I stuck the charger’s heavy, bulky cord into the Mach-E’s fender-mounted port. The station instantly recognized a “Ford owner” with FordPass, and the charge initiated automatically, without me having to futz with a thing. My phone’s FordPass app began tracking the charge. This is going to be great, I thought: Child’s play, just like charging a Tesla.
