Ford Charge Station Pro (2024 Review)

[ChrisCon]

Chris, sounds like you check all the boxes. Your utility talks to the truck somehow to know when you charge ?

No , my utility has a rate setup where if you sign up,
You pay less money for electricity during super off peak hours. It knows when I’m using the electricity because the utility provider changed over all residential meters to newer “smart” meters.

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[Montecarlossfan]

Glad to see others using the charger that came with the truck, I agree it's overkill but being able to go from 50-80 percent in roughly 2.5 hrs or less in some cases is great. I have to get my utility company out to replace the drop from the pole as I was seeing substantial voltage drop to the house 121 down to 114v which is excessive since everything is a 200Amp service..In hindsight I shouldve put in 400amp service to force them to upgrade the drop earlier..but in 2017 when I was rewiring the house which is only 1400 sq ft , i figured it survived on 100a fuse service since the 50's,200 amp was plenty for the loads I have.
Electric dryer ,central air being the large loads.

 

[Maquis]

Chris, sounds like you check all the boxes. Your utility talks to the truck somehow to know when you charge ?

Most people with a simple TOU plan don’t require any special connectivity. You set the schedule to the “cheap” window and you’re done.

 

[Dinozero]

Most people with a simple TOU plan don’t require any special connectivity. You set the schedule to the “cheap” window and you’re done.

Just a curiosity. Is all electricity used during those Hours cheaper or just the EV charging?

I guess I'd understand more if it's all electricity.

 

[ChrisCon]

Just a curiosity. Is all electricity used during those Hours cheaper or just the EV charging?

I guess I'd understand more if it's all electricity.

Eveyrthing..
The caveat is you typically pay a few percent more during peak hours . I've made a few changes to offset that additional fee. We supercool or "precool" the house in the summertime, which is the idea of cooling the house below preferred temp overnight so that it requires less energy during daytime hours. I also try to move some laundry usage to between 11 pm and 6:00am, but the energy savings there as compared to the energy my wife uses to yell at me when I inevitably wake her up at 1:00am to show her that I finally think I may have cracked the code on how to fold a fitted sheet cancel each other out.

 

[Dinozero]

Eveyrthing..
The caveat is you typically pay a few percent more during peak hours . I've made a few changes to offset that additional fee. We supercool or "precool" the house in the summertime, which is the idea of cooling the house below preferred temp overnight so that it requires less energy during daytime hours. I also try to move some laundry usage to between 11 pm and 6:00am, but the energy savings there as compared to the energy my wife uses to yell at me when I inevitably wake her up at 1:00am to show her that I finally think I may have cracked the code on how to fold a fitted sheet cancel each other out.

Lol this is quite interesting. I guess if it works it works. Would be tough to push all that energy to late hours like you're saying.

Does that "supercooling" and stuff tend to work? Yell at the kids more for leaving the door open? lol

 

[ChrisCon]

Lol this is quite interesting. I guess if it works it works. Would be tough to push all that energy to late hours like you're saying.

Does that "supercooling" and stuff tend to work? Yell at the kids more for leaving the door open? lol

This youtuber explains it much better (and nerdier) than I ever could.

 

[JRT]

My mistake when I set up my electrical needs in 2021 with the Mach-e was not getting the 100 amp circuit. I had my same electrician come out last November but the cost for a 100amp was over $5k with new code requirements for sub-panel and the length of wire needed.

I instead bought an RV plug and wired in while also reducing the charge rate. Yes it isn't much faster then a portable charger but total cost was $30 and if we move I can take with me and maybe setup for 80 at a future house.

All that said I'm perfectly happy with the charger and have had no real need to recover any faster. With SC Tesla opening, once I have my adapter I can easily fast charge to 90% if needed now.

 

[Kenric]

I just got my FCSP. I am going to be limited to a 50A breaker, so running at 40A. I do have an extra J1772 cable, but I am confused about the wiring so I am not sure I can replace the CCS1 connector.
https://www.phoenixcontact.com/en-u...g-cable-ev-t1g2c-1ac48a-25ft12asbk11u-1289517
It has the 2 AC for 240 you expect, a large ground, and five small wires. The one with the FCSP has 2 AC, ground 2 DC, and 4 small wires. I thought there were only 2 signal pins on J1772, so what are the other wires for?

 

[Dinozero]

I just got my FCSP. I am going to be limited to a 50A breaker, so running at 40A. I do have an extra J1772 cable, but I am confused about the wiring so I am not sure I can replace the CCS1 connector.
https://www.phoenixcontact.com/en-u...g-cable-ev-t1g2c-1ac48a-25ft12asbk11u-1289517
It has the 2 AC for 240 you expect, a large ground, and five small wires. The one with the FCSP has 2 AC, ground 2 DC, and 4 small wires. I thought there were only 2 signal pins on J1772, so what are the other wires for?

I believe the other wires are for the home backup system.

 

[Kenric]

I gave it a shot. The two wires on the ccs1 are a temperature sensor I believe. The J1772 doesn't appear to have that. I connected the L1, L2, ground, CP and CS and left the thermistor wires connected to the CCS1 cable. Plugged into the truck and the relays clicked on like normal, then off, then on, then off, and then I disconnected when the LED turned yellow. My current theory is the FCSP triggers the DC to check the connection, and that isn't working. Not sure why else it wouldn't have worked.

 

[Maquis]

My current theory is the FCSP triggers the DC to check the connection, and that isn't working. Not sure why else it wouldn't have worked.

I don’t think that’s the case. Some folks have successfully modified a Tesla adapter to charge their Tesla. There would be nothing to the DC pins in that scenario.

 

[Stanjj]

This post is for the new truck owners like me, that may be looking to install a Ford Charge Station Pro and feeling a little bit unsure if that's the right decision. After reading all the threads and horror stories people had with this thing, I was really scared to hook it up.

I installed the FCSP using 3AWG copper wire and 6 solid strand copper for ground. Total run of wire was about 9ft.

I did a conduit install on top of the drywall and utilized a 100A breaker for the circuit.

Using the app to connect the charger to my Wi-Fi was without issue. Worked on the first try. I do have good wifi in my garage as I have an extender out there for the Ring security system.

The first charge after turning it on was strange, it only was going at 1kW and the app showed it was pending a firmware update. I turned off the breaker and double checked all my connections. Flipped the breaker back on and tried again and got 16 kW. Not sure if it was something to do with the pending firmware update, or cycling the breaker that cleared that up.

I left the house for an hour or so and returned, and was surprised the firmware had already updated. I was under that impression that only happens at night or in the early morning.


I take the full cord off the charger each time I use it, and I have had zero faults or charges interrupted due to any kind of overheating so far.

I absolutely love how quick it is. Utilizing the full 80A right now.


Again, just wanted to share my experiences and report how the charger seems to be behaving in 2024. Perhaps some software updates or something has made it better since originally and all the bad overheating issues.





*I have not had a charge session longer than 3hours yet

Same here ... no problems with my FCSP. Love it.

 

[Mikkel]

This youtuber explains it much better (and nerdier) than I ever could.

That guy has a ton of interesting videos on his YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections)

He has a quirky (snarky) delivery, but I find him quite entertaining!

 

[Jenovalente]

Thanks for bringing this up. Great point. I didn't want to install mine until heard from sure from my Utility company.

My utility company is just starting a brand new beta program for disconnected rates. Ford is excluded because of the reasons you mentioned. I've tried to talk to them about allowing some 3rd party EVSE but they only seem to go off the data from the manufacturer.

I started a thread on this forum about that, and some people shockingly said they get a utility discount in their state using Ford EVs and Ford's EVSE. So I don't know what the deal is??



That said.. if I could get in the program I'd save $233 a year. So I already have a backup plan. When I installed my FCSP, I left my 14-50 Nema outlet in the garage. It was hard to get the space in the panel for it, but I made it work.

Since I still got a 14-50 Nema, I could just buy a 3rd party charger that plugs into that outlet and charge at night for a discount if they give me one and it would pay for the charger pretty quickly.


Then my 80A charger would only get used when fast charging is necessary I suppose.

This is not true.
I’m in NC and our area of Duke Energy started a pilot program for certain EVs that would let the utility - working through Ford in this case maybe - adjust the EVSE to throttle power delivery under high grid loads.

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