For customers still unsure whether they’re ready to make the switch to an all-electric vehicle, Ford is sweetening the pot.
Today, the company launched a new initiative called the “Ford Power Promise,” in which it will provide a suite of benefits to customers who buy or lease a new EV. And chief among them is a complimentary home charger for all new customers, as well as the costs of standard installation.
The charger that’s being offered is the company’s Ford Charge Station Pro, a $1,310 Level 2 charger that comes with a standard CCS1 connector. Ford declined to put a monetary value on the installation but said it would cover costs up to 60 amps of power and 80 feet of wire run. Customers who need to upgrade their home electrical panel before the installation, however, will need to cover those costs themselves.
For customers who buy or lease a new EV but already have a home charger installed, Ford will provide them with the cash equivalent of $2,000.
That’s a good incentive to try to poach a driver of another EV brand.
If I buy an EV, it won’t be a smartphone on wheels. There is no way I’m giving these fuckers my driving data.
Every car is a smartphone on wheels if you bought it within the last 5-10 years.
Yeah, but the ones running on 3g don’t work as a smartphone anymore since the networks shut down. Basically anything more than 7 years old should be fine at this point.
You can still find cars dumber than shit now. Just go for the “lower trim” models. Those are normally cheaper and have simple dashboards, nothing internet connected, because ya know “they have less features”. As if that were a bad thing. Lol
You said “every car”, so I’ll assume you do mean every car, which is very much untrue. My 2016 Hyundai Tucson is a very much dumb car. It has a radio, CD player and Bluetooth. And that’s what I want essentially. I don’t want anything to do with those that are connected to the internet and get OTA updates. I’ll never buy those for as long as I can find the other ones. Cars like mine do exit and will continue existing, as a “low trim” model, which is
whywhat I always get anyway.I think you’re in for a rude awakening on your next car purchase. The low trim models are prime targets for data harvesting because they can make money off your data on the backend since you didn’t splurge for all the high-markup gizmos at the time of purchase. It’s just like smart phones and TVs, the less you pay up front, the more they find other means to make money off you.
How can a dashboard that has absolutely nothing “smart” about it collect my data? It’s only a radio that has Bluetooth, how’s that going to collect data and send it to the manufacturer?
The dashboard has nothing to do with data collection. That happens internally with various chips and ecu. The data being sent to the company servers don’t care about your dashboard, that’s handled by a different chip that has 3g/4g connectivity. In fact, you can buy a fancy tool that plugs into your obd II port on one end and a laptop in the other see real time data about how various systems are performing and what’s happening based on your driving.
I see. I’ve always thought the data collection is through those smart dashboards. So, thank you for the info. Also, isn’t 3g dead by now? Can those modems be ripped off the car, BTW?
I don’t know if 3g is completely dead at this point but it’s on it’s way out. I think those on-star enabled cars are using 3g but I could be wrong. As far as ripping those out, I doubt it since all of that is integrated into a single chip or it’s soldered on. Best that you can probably do is hope that it is relying on defunct network so it can’t communicate to the mothership anymore but you wouldn’t have a way to verify that.
Still not going to buy a massive and pointless electric truck. Give me a full EV Fusion, maybe.
Ford also makes an EV car, the MachE.
*SUV
I had to look it up; the Charge Station Pro is the one that allows bidirectional charging where the F-150 Lightning can serve as a backup to the home when plugged in, a great feature. The Mach E doesn’t have that capability, though, so it’s a wasted feature with that car.
I really liked the F-150 Lightning, but a full-size pickup with a crew cab doesn’t fit in my garage. I would have room to park outside in the driveway (and charger installation would be easier), but I don’t want to do that unless I have to.
The Mach E was nice, but I found the seats uncomfortable after about 30 minutes (the only part of the car I felt really was like a Mustang).
In any case I’m not in the market for a new car right now and don’t think I could afford a new electric vehicle with my current work situation.
GM had a similar deal when I bought my Bolt. It was pretty awesome, since my panel is on the other side of my house from the garage and it would’ve cost about $1500 otherwise. Lots of horror stories with the middleman they used (QMerit) and people having “non-standard” installations over silly little things though. Hopefully Ford has a little better implementation.
Can confirm with Qmerit. Needed a service upgrade (that was not possible due to unrelated factors).
Other options included disconnecting a different circuit, or installing a charger with load sensing. Both would’ve been about 15 minutes of work, and were an extra $600 on top of the $1000 that GM was paying.
Include an array of solar panels, then count me in.
That would be cool, but really? They could have also sold the car and nothing else. They do a promo that should make EVs a little more approachable for a lot of people, and you’re demanding a (probably) 5-figure addition to that?
