Ford Launches Employee EV Charging Network

Ford Energi Plugged In

by | Sep 16, 2013

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Ford Energi Plugged InFord plans to install electric vehicle charging stations at more than 50 of its company offices, product development campuses and manufacturing facilities.

Installation will begin later this year and roll out throughout 2014, the company says.

Ford already has more than 1,700 EV charging stations at its dealerships and company facilities in North America. The new workplace chargers will add approximately 200 more, expanding the charging network to nearly every Ford factility in the US and Canada, the company says.

Ford employees will be able to charge the all-electric Focus Electric, as well as Ford’s two plug-in hybrids — the Fusion Energi and C-Max Energi — at the charge stations. The service will initially be free to employees for the first four hours. Ford estimates it will cost the company about 50 cents to fully charge a vehicle, saving employees up to $2 in gasoline each day.

Ford’s workplace EV chargers are different from competitor programs in that they will be networked together. This will allow the company to gather additional information on EV use, such as the number of hours vehicles are charging and the amount of CO2 reduced.

Ford Fusion Energi and C-Max Energi drivers typically make three of their four daily trips in all-electric mode, based on data from Ford’s MyFord Mobile app. Every 10 days, Ford customers drive approximately 1 million miles on electricity alone, the company says. In total, Ford customers now have logged 30 million all-electric miles driving the full range of plug-in vehicles, saving more than 1.2 million kilograms of CO2.

Current customer data from the Fusion Energi and C-Max Energi is showing that three of every four trips are accomplished on electricity alone. By adding another charge during the day at the workplace, Ford says it is likely that employees will be able to accomplish all of their work-week trips without using gasoline.

The company says last month saw Ford’s best August EV sales ever, with 8,292 vehicles sold, up 288 percent over the same period a year ago.

A report published last week says commercial EV sales outstrip consumer electric cars. Commercial and industrial EV sales will top $30 billion this year, compared with $28 billion for consumer EVs, according to the report by  IDTechEx. By 2023 that gap will widen to $154 billion for commercial EVs and $119 billion for electric and hybrid cars.

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