Ford deploying 'angels' to find, fix bad EV chargers

SAN FRANCISCO — Ford Motor Co. knows its customers' electric vehicle charging experience is less than perfect, and it's deploying an army of "angels" to fix it.

The automaker offers customers some 63,000 plugs across the country in what it calls a "network of networks," made up of stations from Electrify America, ChargePoint and others. That patchwork collection of third-party chargers has occasionally been problematic for Mustang Mach-E owners looking to power up on the road.

"There are a lot of plugs out there, but some of them are old and they don't have the quality or reliability we want," Darren Palmer, Ford's general manager of battery electric vehicles, told Automotive News during a media drive program in San Francisco. "Over 99.5 percent of customers go into a charger and get a charge. We're pleased about that. But a number less than that get a charge the first time they charge."

Enter the Charge Angels.

Employees in specially instrumented Mach-Es will drive around and test out individual chargers in areas where connected vehicle data — or angry social media posts — say customers are having problems.

"All they'll do all day long is go and check them to see where they fail and why," Palmer said.

Details of the program are still being worked out, but officials say it's expected to launch before the end of the year with an undetermined number of Ford employees.

Palmer said he came up with the name.

"It's a guardian angel who's looking after you when you don't even know you need it, and they're just in the background," he said.

The goal is to make the company's charging network, which will expand in the near future, as reliable as possible as it prepares for the launch of the F-150 Lightning next year. Palmer said the last thing Ford wants is for customers towing heavy loads or large trailers to have to maneuver to multiple chargers before they can get one to work.

He said he's still brainstorming ideas for how to make the program more fun.

"Maybe if you spot an angel you get a gift," he said. "I'm thinking about that."