Seamless car charging comes to Electrify America with Plug&Charge

[Harley Lover]

One of the criticisms leveled at every manufacturer entering the BEV realm but Tesla is that none of them have built their own charging network. Ford's approach for its BEV's has been to partner with Electrify America, which has a tremendous number of locations throughout the U.S..

 

In spite of that, the Tesla model is held up by some to be the 'only' way to go. One of the features that (until now) has been unique to Tesla's system is the integration between the cars and chargers: 

If you ask any analyst, they'll tell you that Tesla's Supercharger network is one of the company's most valuable assets. For one thing, they're everywhere in the United States, enabling the kinds of road trips that always come up as an excuse as to why electric cars can't work. But it's not just the coverage—a Supercharger is effortless to use. You turn up and plug your car in, and it does the rest. Your Tesla tells the Supercharger who you are and whether you have to pay, and it deals with any billing. The whole arrangement really is delightfully easy.

 

Into that competitive void, Electrify America has stepped:

Fast charging your electric vehicle at an Electrify America station just got a lot more seamless—at least for some electric vehicles. That's because the company has now implemented Plug&Charge, the user-friendly name for the ISO 15118 standard that enables an electric car to talk to the charger and handle authentication and billing.

 

And the good Ford-related news:

There is a catch, however. Just implementing ISO 15118 on the charger side is no good; it needs to be enabled on the car side as well. That's beyond the scope of almost all (non-Tesla) EVs on the road already, at least without an update. The good news is that model year 2021 Porsche Taycans, Lucid Airs, and Ford Mustang Mach-Es will all support Plug&Charge

 

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/11/electrify-americas-ev-chargers-now-support-plugcharge/?comments=1&unread=1

 

[rperez817]

Thanks for sharing this Harley Lover sir. I'm looking forward to testing this V2G capability in the Mustang Mach-E my wife and I ordered once we take delivery.