Double charged by both ford and tesla at tesla station Ford says basically "your loss"

[moder8tor]

For those of you that have been following my Tesla station charging nightmare many months ago. I have finally had some success. new Tesla adapter and many differences in the Tesla app since my last experience and i got it to partially work. After plugging in and still repeatedly getting "unknown error, charge not initiated" I open up the Tesla app up and I get it to charge. All appears good. Then I get a receipt from ford and a receipt from Tesla for the same session. I never initiated a charge with ford and only got errors. I called the blue oval number and they basically said "too bad, so sad, bye". I know what you are going to say. You had the button in the ford pass app enabling plug and play. Yes that is true. But I had never had a plug and play session work at a Tesla station. In fact this time also it gave me specific message on the dash saying it was not going to work. Hence. I moved to the Tesla app. Highly disappointed with Ford.

My Lessons learned:
1. Ford plug and play with a Tesla station is ridiculously expensive. don't do it. (UPDATED- math error, ignore this one)
2. Don't even try Ford plug and Play at a Tesla station of you will be double charged by both ford and Tesla for the session.
3. Ford blue oval customer service is of no help. Is there tension between ford and tesla keeping things from working?

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[RickLightning]

1) Not true. It's the same cost as Tesla.
2) Not true, actually impossible. The session you started with Plug & Charge likely also shows, in your confirmation email, that you paid for say 2 kWh. Then, you started a charge with Tesla using their app.

If you believe you were double charged, post both email receipts showing the detail.

 

[BabyDoc1012]

That is crazy. Back when I got my adapter from Ford, I went to a local Tesla charger to try it out and see how it worked and make sure that it worked. I am almost certain I had the Plug and Charge set up in my truck, but I had to initiate it through the tesla app to tell it to which station and I was only charged through Tesla. I need to check the truck to see if maybe I shut off Plug and Charge.

 

[hturnerfamily]

unfortunately, or, well, fortunately, the Ford Blue Oval Plug N Charge works perfectly well for most of us... I don't have an account with Tesla's app, and don't intend to, and certainly have NEVER been charged anywhere NEAR what you claim Ford is 'charging' you.. I've also never had any issue at any Tesla Superchargers with my adapter, whether Ford's provided adapter, or my own from Lectron, whether I activated the charge via Plug N Charge, or manually thru the Ford Pass APP.

Tesla stations, many of them, use TIME OF USE billing rates - overnight it might be as low as 20cents, and in the blazing sun of the middle of the afternoon, it might be as much as 56cents... all under Ford's Blue oval billing account... at least here in the SouthEast.

I think you have more going on ...

 

[moder8tor]

1) Not true. It's the same cost as Tesla.
2) Not true, actually impossible. The session you started with Plug & Charge likely also shows, in your confirmation email, that you paid for say 2 kWh. Then, you started a charge with Tesla using their app.

If you believe you were double charged, post both email receipts showing the detail.

Ok, here are my receipts: Note the time of 9:57 and 9:56. I did not start a session with plug and charge. it has never worked, it always give an error. Hence I moved on to the tesla app.
You are right with my math error. the charges are the same per Kwh. I will edit post on that.

 

[K6CCC]

I have never seen a Tesla station charging 99 cents per KWH! Highest I have seen is 72 cents.

And yes, assuming you have Plug and Charge set up and enabled in FordPass, you should only need to plug in the cable. Note that I found that I had to plug in my A2Z adapter into my truck first and then plug the Tesla cable into the adapter. Some people report exactly the opposite. You should never have to use the Tesla app. The only reason you need to use the Tesla app is if you want the billing to go through Tesla instead of Ford. You will pay the same rate either way - UNLESS you have a paid Tesla subscription in which case you get the lower rate that Tesla vehicles pay. How much of a discount it is does vary. I just looked at a nearby SuperCharger and the Ford rate is 69 cents per KWH and with a Tesla subscription it is 49 cents per KWH. That's the largest difference that I have seen, but it is usually 10 - 15 cents cheaper.

If you have Plug and Charge enabled in FordPass and you have a Tesla subscription you MUST initiate the charging session via the Tesla all BEFORE you plug in. If you plug in first, the session will be charged via Plug and Charge and the non-subscription price..

 

[RickLightning]

Those are two unique sessions.

The Ford session ran from 9:43 - 9:56.

The Tesla session STARTED at 9:57 and ran for 15 minutes.

In FordPass charging history, you SHOULD (assume it capture both sessions) see TWO charging sessions, the first delivering 27kWh (a ~20% change in state of charge), the second delivering about 11%, for a total between the two of around 31% charge.

 

[moder8tor]

Those are two unique sessions.

The Ford session ran from 9:43 - 9:56.

The Tesla session STARTED at 9:57 and ran for 15 minutes.

In FordPass charging history, you SHOULD (assume it capture both sessions) see TWO charging sessions, the first delivering 27kWh (a ~20% change in state of charge), the second delivering about 11%, for a total between the two of around 31% charge.

I am/was confident that the tesla receipt indicates the end time of a 15 min session. So you are saying I did 2 successive sessions totaling 41 Kwh. I find that hard to believe given the time I was there and the state of charge going in but I have no proof to argue that. none the less, something is wrong as all I was getting was errors when plugging in with plug and play. I am not going to do that at tesla stations anymore. Works fine at EA stations.

BTW. the ford blue oval customer support says it is very possible to get charged twice if you open up the tesla app while the plug and play button is set in your ford pass account. In my case I didn't think that was going to happen because of all the errors.

 

[RickLightning]

I am/was confident that the tesla receipt indicates the end time of a 15 min session. So you are saying I did 2 successive sessions totaling 41 Kwh. I find that hard to believe given the time I was there and the state of charge going in but I have no proof to argue that. none the less, something is wrong as all I was getting was errors when plugging in with plug and play. I am not going to do that at tesla stations anymore. Works fine at EA stations.

BTW. the ford blue oval customer support says it is very possible to get charged twice if you open up the tesla app while the plug and play button is set in your ford pass account. In my case I didn't think that was going to happen because of all the errors.

Did you going into FordPass, Energy, and pull up the charging history? That would show it.

I am confident that the Tesla app indicates the START of the session. I record my trips on log sheets. I write down the time I stopped, the charger location, energy, ... and the minutes of charging. That start time is the same (within minutes, I start the session 1-3 minutes later) as the Tesla app indicates.

If you open the Tesla app, and activate the session, and then plug in, and the Tesla session FAILS, then Plug & Charge can take over. If you plug in, Plug & Charge takes over, and then if you try to activate with Tesla, you cannot, because that charger is in use.

Safest is to turn off Plug & Charge on a trip where you aren't going to use it. Given that it's no different (cost wise) than activating the session with FordPass (just saves seconds), I leave mine off now.

 

[K6CCC]

I am/was confident that the tesla receipt indicates the end time of a 15 min session

Absolutely, the time shown on the Tesla receipt is the start time. I keep a Google Spreadsheet of all my charge sessions (103 so far). I just checked the charge times in the Tesla app and compared that to the start and end times from my spreadsheet for every single SuperCharger session. In every single one, the time listed on the Tesla app is the start time. Note BTW, if you just plug in and therefore use Plug and Charge, the Tesla app does NOT list the session at all.

 

[moder8tor]

Absolutely, the time shown on the Tesla receipt is the start time. I keep a Google Spreadsheet of all my charge sessions (103 so far). I just checked the charge times in the Tesla app and compared that to the start and end times from my spreadsheet for every single SuperCharger session. In every single one, the time listed on the Tesla app is the start time. Note BTW, if you just plug in and therefore use Plug and Charge, the Tesla app does NOT list the session at all.

Alright, lesson learned. If they were successive charging sessions I just have to figure out why the truck keeps throwing errors even though it actually was charging when using plug and play. Actually I am just going to leave plug and play off for no on.

 

[incTomi]

Just got my '25 Lightning Flash and while I am waiting for the QMERIT contractor to install the home charger, I have been exclusively using Tesla Supercharger. Signed up for the membership option and using their off-peak rates around Tri-state at ~0.22/kWh using the magic dock only superchargers. It was plug and play with no adapters and no issues at all. Tesla has the charging figured out!!

 

[RickLightning]

Just got my '25 Lightning Flash and while I am waiting for the QMERIT contractor to install the home charger, I have been exclusively using Tesla Supercharger. Signed up for the membership option and using their off-peak rates around Tri-state at ~0.22/kWh using the magic dock only superchargers. It was plug and play with no adapters and no issues at all. Tesla has the charging figured out!!

Umm, no.

Plug & Charge, i.e. where you pull up to a charger, open the port, remove the charging hose, and plug in, does NOT get you any discounted rate on any charging network.

If you are a Tesla member, to get the discounted rate you need to use the Tesla app and activate a charger. If you turn off Plug & Charge, you can plug in and then activate the charger with the app. Or, a better way is to activate the charger with the Tesla app, then WHEN IT TELLS YOU TO, plug in.

As to "no adapters", Magic Dock is in fact an adapter.

 

[incTomi]

Haha, if you want to pick up semantics, go ahead. Magic dock is an adapter but built-in. I am not plugging or fiddling with my own adapter. Yes, you do start from the Tesla app.

 

[K6CCC]

I am not plugging or fiddling with my own adapter. Yes, you do start from the Tesla app.

Actually you will need an adapter. A VERY TINY percentage of SuperChargers have the MagicDock. I have not seen one yet.

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