AFDC Data Reveals 141 Ford Dealers Now Have Public Fast Chargers
Remember back in December 2022, when Ford required dealers to invest in DC fast chargers (DCFCs) as part of the Ford Model e "EV Certified" program to be able to sell Ford EVs?
From a 2022 article in Electrek: 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.
And then Ford backpedaled a bit on the program and eased requirements for dealers "due to a changing market."
On October 15, we were looking at data from the AFDC charging database and discovered that sometime that day, Ford added to the database 141 DCFC stations as part of its Ford Charge network. Since tracking and analyzing public charging data and trends is one of the many things we do at Paren, we dove into the data to better understand the composition of this new Ford Charge network.
69% of the Ford Dealer Stations Have Four or Six Ports
The first and most obvious observation was that all 141 locations (charging stations in AFDC parlance) are located at Ford dealerships. Interestingly, 81 or 57% of the dealership locations are four-port sites, and 16 or 11% of the sites are six-port stations.
Thirty-eight of the 141 station entries in AFDC include pricing, which ranges from $0.16 per kWh to $0.95 per kWh, with an average of $0.50 per kWh. Seven of the 38 pricing entries use per-minute pricing, while one site is listed at $33/hour, and one at $50/session. However, in a comment on LinkedIn from a Ford employee, we learned that the “$50/session location in reality is $0.45/kWh.” Apparently, some of the pricing entries are not correct. (We are working to verify if the other per-minute pricing entries may also be incorrect.)
All but three of the stations were listed as opening on October 8, but we know that many have been available for several months. Ford Charge allows customers to pay and track their charging sessions on both the Ford Pass and Shell apps. All charger units are Power Electronics NB240 units with dual-port power sharing with a maximum power output of 240 kW.
Wisconsin Tops States With 15 Dealerships Participating in Ford Charge
Wisconsin tops all states with 15 participating dealerships — for a total of 58 ports and an average of 3.9 ports per dealership station. Texas and New York are next, each with 14 dealership stations.
A few other fun facts across the US Ford dealerships on the Ford Charge program:
- Dealers in 33 states have deployed fast chargers.
- 10 states have five or more dealers in the program.
- Interestingly, California has zero dealerships participating.
- Nine states have a single dealer participating (including some high EV-adopting states such as Massachusetts, Colorado, and Nevada).
- The 141 dealerships have an average of 3.7 DCFC ports.
Car dealerships are not businesses with parking lots that you normally think of as being open and available 24 hours per day. And indeed, if these dealership-based stations are true “public chargers,” you might wonder how accessible they are.
To help answer this question, we created a Pivot Table from the AFDC data. Of the 141 stations, 123 or 87% were listed as being open 24/7 (see table below). The other 13% are generally open for 10-12 hours — from early morning into early evening and at least on Monday through Saturday. Many of these dealer stations also appear to make restrooms available to charging customers, although only during the hours that the dealership is open.
We were also curious about the location of these chargers at Ford dealerships. If nearly 90% are available to the public 24/7, they would need to be located outside any fenced-in or gated area of the dealership property. When looking at a sample of the sites on PlugShare listed as being available 24/7, all the charging units appeared to be located in public parking areas, such as in the photo below.
Inside or outside the fence, we see a tremendous opportunity for Ford dealers to leverage these chargers to assist customers with their new EV purchase. As we move up the EV adoption curve toward more mainstream consumers, we know that more and more new car deliveries are going to first-time EV owners who may be apprehensive about using public charging. These on-site chargers provide an opportunity for Ford dealers to spend more time with customers by walking them through the public charging experience before sending them on their way. This initial education around public charging best practices will be very beneficial to the Ford and dealer brand and reputation, and enhance the overall ownership experience.
This is the first in a series of profiles of US public fast charging networks. Let us know your thoughts on the series and what information you would like to see included in future articles.
