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Rwbill

Well-known member
Joined
May 25, 2012
Messages
87
Location
Richmond, Virginia
Jason at Richmond Ford emailed me this morning to say they had received a VIN for my FFE, in a status of "In Order Processing". They estimate availability of August 20.
This is about 2 months earlier than we had guessed. Michigan Assembly Plant doing good work.

There was a link in one of these threads for checking status using the VIN on some Ford web page ? I'll never find it, does anyone know what it is?
 
Jason updated me this weekend to say Ford has a production or build date for my car of August 6. :shock: Need a call back from best buy to schedule survey of my garage.

Dominion Power will be at my home on August 7 to install a new meter as I enrolled in the EV Plus Home program. This meter will keep track of power use in 30 minute increments and adjust my charges accordingly. A 240 charger will complete its business conveniently between 0100-0500 when the off-off-peak rate is 5.xxx cents per KWH.

I don't know how many kwh I will use everyday going about 50 miles, but right now it's a minimum 10 gallons of unleaded a week, about $35. If 15 kwh per day that will be about 80 cents per day maybe, $4 per week. Does that sound right? This would make that cost about 11% of gas.
 
Rwbill said:
Jason updated me this weekend to say Ford has a production or build date for my car of August 6. :shock: Need a call back from best buy to schedule survey of my garage.

Dominion Power will be at my home on August 7 to install a new meter as I enrolled in the EV Plus Home program. This meter will keep track of power use in 30 minute increments and adjust my charges accordingly. A 240 charger will complete its business conveniently between 0100-0500 when the off-off-peak rate is 5.xxx cents per KWH.

I don't know how many kwh I will use everyday going about 50 miles, but right now it's a minimum 10 gallons of unleaded a week, about $35. If 15 kwh per day that will be about 80 cents per day maybe, $4 per week. Does that sound right? This would make that cost about 11% of gas.


RW...you and I both ordered from Jason, perhaps we will be at the dealer taking delivery at the same time? What color did you get?

You do realize that if you do the EV Plus Home option that any household power you use from 5am till 10pm will be at double the standard rate. slightly discounted electricity is only available from 10pm- 1am and fully discounted from 1am-5am.

I would really like to use the EV rates but, there is no way I could move my whole house to this. Turns out we like to run our AC during the day, and well lots of other things :D

And to do just the EV I would have to install a second meter base on my dime. Although we could often charge at night we often need to charge during the day and of course DP's plan punishes you for that.

Also would be very interested to hear what Best Buy says about your install cost. You know there are cheaper options than BB for the EVSE?
 
Thanks for the comments. Trying to figure out which plan to enroll in, if any, made me walk away from it a couple of times. I wish I could copy the images of the rate charts that show the different time zones, but they should be on this link below. Once I thought the EV plan with separate meter would be best, then the next time changed my mind, considering my daily routine.

I chose the EV plus home, which has its peak of 16 cents an hour only from 1 pm - 7 pm, summertime. No one is home until 6 pm or later, so the AC is up around 80 and doesn't run or very little in those hours June-August. From 7 pm to 1am the rate just keeps dropping below average when I will be using the stove, sometimes the clothes dryer, and charging at rock bottom 5 cents between 1 am - 5 am. This plan was also cheaper after 6 am than the EV plan for those cold or very hot days when I would precondition the car.

To precondition the car in the morning under the EV plan would be nearly 18 cents per kwh, so that was a factor to pick the EV plus Home instead.

Wintertime even the peak time rates in the EV plus Home plan are just 11+ cents, less than a penny above average, and still maintains the deep discount times at 6 cents an hour.

Sorry that's too long a discussion to try and tap out. The images in the below .pdf seemed to show the EV plus Home would work best for my schedule and they'll install the new meter free.

I did start to look at other EVSE but have started talking with Best Buy. Not too late to change my mind.

https://www.dom.com/about/environment/pdf/electric-vehicle-brochure.pdf

EDIT. UPDATE 1. I should mention I'm kind of winging it here, trying to figure it out and make the best of it. Working with electronics, radios, and rechargeable batteries I was always intrigued with the concept of an electric car but didn't think an EV would be practical. But studying what Ford has done, the battery characteristics and its hopeful life, and the generous range per charge of the Focus and everything they built into this car, it struck me that this would cover 99% of my weekly driving to work and weekend errands, and with the deeply discounted charging rates under Dominion Virgina Power, made easy with Ford's software, it seemed worth a bit of a gamble.
 
Rwbill said:
I should mention I'm kind of winging it here, trying to figure it out and make the best of it. Working with electronics, radios, and rechargeable batteries I was always intrigued with the concept of an electric car but didn't think an EV would be practical. But studying what Ford has done, the battery characteristics and its hopeful life, and the generous range per charge of the Focus and everything they built into this car, it struck me that this would cover 99% of my weekly driving to work and weekend errands, and with the deeply discounted charging rates under Dominion Virgina Power, made easy with Ford's software, it seemed worth a bit of a gamble.

As far as the car goes, I have little doubt you are going to love it. As you have figured out it will handle 99% of your daily commuting.

I had forgotten that when you do EV + Home the rate plan is different. Thanks for the link. It is very difficult to figure out if the plan is worthwhile without some way to monitor your "current" energy usage.

I bought this from Amazon when they were on sale for $38, looks like they have gone back up to $65

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-EM100B-Energy-Monitor/dp/B001ELJKLE/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1343832392&sr=1-1&keywords=black+%26+decker+energy+saver+monitor

If you have the right kind of meter it reads the info from your meter and sends it to the monitor unit. Using this you might be able to get a sense of how much power you use during the day and if it would be worth to switch over.

My wife and I sometimes work from home and during the summer the kids are frequently home, so the EV+Home plan would probably bankrupt us :)

When they had the hearings for this plan I think I was the only citizen to comment on the plan. I offered the opinion that because of the way the plan is structured what they would get is ONLY the people who for whom it "works" to always be able to charge at night.

There are many nights when I could charge at night, but there are frequently times when I need to charge during the day as well. I think they should have kept the rate during the day the same, and simply gave you are reduced rate for charging the vehicle at night. I know there are many people for whom charging only at night will work. But there are also many people, like me, who often need to charge at least somewhat during the day, at least that is the case for the Volt, the FFE may be different. I think their plan misses the opportunity to get people like me to move a significant portion of their charging to off peak.

Very interested to hear about your experiences with this program, please keep us posted. Probably we should an appropriately titled thread on this discussion.

Did you go with leather or cloth? I wanted the leather, but it was so light colored I was afraid it would stain too easily so I am looking at getting custom seat covers. The kids and I both play sports, so we are often very dirty/muddy.
 
Hey thanks for the comments, there are a lot of variables. My routine is pretty well set with little variation, so I nearly always will be able to charge between the midnight to six period, and rarely will need to charge during daytime hours. In fact I park at a state-owned parking deck and may be able to plug in to one of the many double-110 outlets conveniently located everywhere. This would allow me at a minimum to precondition the car during cold winter days, or the thick humid days of summer. Who knows, I'll ask Dept of Gen Svcs and may even leave the car plugged in all day long, recovering much of the charge and preconditioning, greatly reducing what I have to do at home. Even without the parking deck at work, the 50 mile daily commute leaves plenty of spare capacity for heating, cooling, and side trips, all charged at the 5 cents a minute rate after midnight.

Probably another forum I posted the pic of my window sticker that estimates a savings of $8600 over gas over 5 years, but that is based on 12 cents per kWh. If I can charge at under 6 cents per kWh my savings could be roughly double, not including hidden charges tacked on. $15000 - $17000 savings over 5 years is quite significant, and who knows, it doesn't take much imagination to see gasoline going over $4 to $5/gallon regularly.

I don't think a pure EV would have been practical when I was racing home, grabbing one of the kids and heading immediately out to softball, soccer, or basketball practice. Life calms down incredibly when the kids get older! Not that I'm still not worried about them :)

Interested to get the "feel" of the car finally, considering all the comments about regen, Drive vs Neutral, Drive vs Low, do I feel more comfortable slipping the car into neutral, those things I see on other threads.
 
Even though I have had the VIN for a month and the car was allegedly manufactured August 6, I still cannot register it on the myfordmobile app. It says it is an invalid VIN. No hurry, as long as it works after I take delivery.
 
Rwbill said:
Even though I have had the VIN for a month and the car was allegedly manufactured August 6, I still cannot register it on the myfordmobile app. It says it is an invalid VIN. No hurry, as long as it works after I take delivery.

RW... you can't complete the mfm registration until you have the car, part of the process actually happens in the car.

You can confirm your car was manufactured by going to the threads that discuss using your VIN to pull a Monroney Label. If you can pull up a label, your car has been built.

I pulled mine up on August 7th. Attempts before then came back empty.

here is one thread...
http://fordfocuselectric.com/forums/3-ford-focus-electric-owners-forum/306-order-6.html
 
Jason said my car was produced and waiting shipment, possibly arriving 20th August. He said "the one that was ordered before yours" is in Maryland now. Is that yours?

You could have it by Wednesday!
 
Rwbill said:
Jason said my car was produced and waiting shipment, possibly arriving 20th August. He said "the one that was ordered before yours" is in Maryland now. Is that yours?

You could have it by Wednesday!


Right you are. Jason called today. But don't think I can get up there till Friday.
 
Charged Up said:
Rwbill said:
Jason said my car was produced and waiting shipment, possibly arriving 20th August. He said "the one that was ordered before yours" is in Maryland now. Is that yours?

You could have it by Wednesday!


Right you are. Jason called today. But don't think I can get up there till Friday.

I was out of state for a week but Jason told me you picked up your car. That is excellent. I hadn't heard from them so called again this week. They said it is still on hold at the Michigan Assembly Plant, having been produced but waiting something for shipment. Richmond Ford couldn't tell me why it was still waiting to ship.
 
Rwbill said:
Charged Up said:
Rwbill said:
Jason said my car was produced and waiting shipment, possibly arriving 20th August. He said "the one that was ordered before yours" is in Maryland now. Is that yours?

You could have it by Wednesday!


Right you are. Jason called today. But don't think I can get up there till Friday.

I was out of state for a week but Jason told me you picked up your car. That is excellent. I hadn't heard from them so called again this week. They said it is still on hold at the Michigan Assembly Plant, having been produced but waiting something for shipment. Richmond Ford couldn't tell me why it was still waiting to ship.

I did pick up the car. I am loving it. Details to follow at some point. Sorry to hear yours is delayed. Maybe they are doing extra QC, or maybe they are trying to crack this "Stop Safely Now" message that is coming up on some cars.

Keep us posted on what is happening with your vehicle.
 
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