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Plug N’ Charge at Electrify America?

12K views 49 replies 28 participants last post by  Flyingman 
#1 ·
Electrify America, which of course is a subsidiary of VW, announced that they are partnering with a company called Hubject to deploy plug & charge following the standard ISO 15118 (several cars are known to support it including the Porsche Taycan) that would allow the driver with an account to just plug the car in, the charging would start immediately and the driver would get billed thru his account. Nothing new for Tesla owners but this one is an open and secure standard (using public key cryptography). Does anybody know whether the i4 supports this standard?
 
#4 ·
The Ionity charging network here in Europe, which both VW and BMW (plus more) are a part of have opened for plug and charge as well, but currently only the Taycan, the Audi cousin and the Mach E can use it right now as I remember.

however I hope the i4 will support it as well - perhaps later?
 
#5 ·
For the record, I brought the question to the BMWi support team of BMW USA, and they have no clue. I suspect the ISO 15118 support is still an "road map project" for BMW. They invested heavily into iDrive 8, their Driver Assistance professional (which I haven't tried but it looks better and the reviews seem to say it's more accurate than Audi's and even Tesla's for the portion that they cover) and tuning their Adaptive Suspension and DSC/AWD algorithm for the i4 M50, so I can understand that the bandwidth was simply not there for advanced charging features. In my view, I'm not sure I would have spent that much money on iDrive 8, but I am fully behind their investment in the driving capability. The "close actuator traction control" where an additional microprocessor right at the motor manages the torque for quick reaction and offloading the ECU is actually a big deal. I'm buying the i4 for the handling, so they put the money at the right place!
 
#10 ·
#19 ·
$0.10/kW - Seattle suburbs. 90% of our electric comes from hydro.

OTOH, our water bill is over $200/month, which I find bonkers.
 
#20 ·
UK is the same as Germany - get a free subscription for cheaper charging at 16p per kWh, or something. Though I'm sure that'll change before the car is even manufactured, the price of electricity being what it is. My electricity at home is set to go up to 28p per kWh from October. Suboptimal.
 
#23 ·
It will be interesting to see whether BMW extends the offer to individuals who placed orders in late 2021 / early 2022. Supply chain constraints and limited manufacturing capacity make it very unlikely that these vehicles will be delivered as 2022 models. The 2023 model year will probably begin in early summer so there will be comparatively few 2022 vehicles on the road. This may have also been BMW’s intent when they announced the offer.
 
#26 ·
In Texas we have electricity plans that are completely free at night.
$.20 during the day.
$0.00 from 8:00pm to 6:00am with no fees or taxes for usage during this period.

After selling my EV while I wait for the i4, I feel like a clown every time I pay for gas.
 
#28 ·
Anyone heard anything further on this? just found this link for Korean customers:

 
#30 ·
Forgot to mention it earlier, but my electric company (SnoPUD) has a couple of incentives:
On their webshop, they offer $500 instant rebates on Level-2 chargers in the shop.
...AND
After you register an EV, if you send them a copy of the registration showing an address in the utility district and a copy of a receipt for a Level 2 charger, they give you a $400 bill credit.

At $0.10/kWh that will take a long time to eat through. (My monthly bill was usually $25-30 a month before getting the TM3.)
 
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#31 ·
Forgot to mention it earlier, but my electric company (SnoPUD) has a couple of incentives:
On their webshop, they offer $500 instant rebates on Level-2 chargers in the shop.
...AND
After you register an EV, if you send them a copy of the registration showing an address in the utility district and a copy of a receipt for a Level 2 charger, they give you a $400 bill credit.

At $0.10/kWh that will take a long time to eat through. (My monthly bill was usually $25-30 a month before getting the TM3.)
wow!!!! 25-30 a month? do you live in an apartment? I can't imagine paying that little. I have a moderate 2000sq ft home approx. but can't remember ever paying 25-30 a month...not since like... 2000 when I was living in a 1bd apartment.

even with our solar panels we are still paying 65per month. maybe 120 on a crazy month. But we are a tech home. Can't wait to get our two backup batteries as that should really help!
 
#32 ·
Not an apartment, we live in a cave. :ROFLMAO:
Smallish house, gas heat, no A/C, and we turned the cable off like 6 years ago, so no boob tube sucking up juice. We're open to the sky to the East, South and West, so plenty of natural light whenever the sun is up, even on rainy days. SnoPUD, like Seattle gets like 90% of its electricity from Hydro, which is cheap AF. We also lose power every time the wind blows or it rains hard, so that helps keep the bill down, too. :ROFLMAO:

OK, I looked at my last 12 months of bill history. Low of $26.97 in August and high of $65.54 in September. (Now there's a swing). My average is $44.23. Nearly every month is actually under $45 and I suspect the 2 that are over are when someone actually came out and read the meter and we got a catch-up bill. So a bit higher than I was imagining, but still WAY lower than when I lived in other places.

I went back to the start of the pandemic, and even working from home most are under $40

Meh. I's 8-10 months of free electricity at current average usage.
 
#33 ·
Not an apartment, we live in a cave. :ROFLMAO:
Smallish house, gas heat, no A/C, and we turned the cable off like 6 years ago, so no boob tube sucking up juice. We're open to the sky to the East, South and West, so plenty of natural light whenever the sun is up, even on rainy days. SnoPUD, like Seattle gets like 90% of its electricity from Hydro, which is cheap AF. We also lose power every time the wind blows or it rains hard, so that helps keep the bill down, too. :ROFLMAO:

OK, I looked at my last 12 months of bill history. Low of $26.97 in August and high of $65.54 in September. (Now there's a swing). My average is $44.23. Nearly every month is actually under $45 and I suspect the 2 that are over are when someone actually came out and read the meter and we got a catch-up bill. So a bit higher than I was imagining, but still WAY lower than when I lived in other places.

I went back to the start of the pandemic, and even working from home most are under $40

Meh. I's 8-10 months of free electricity at current average usage.
thats awesome! I blame our bill on our techy house. tons of electronics. fast gaming PC's etc. audio gear. I can't help myself. But we try to keep the costs down for electrical. but 65-80per month is typical.
HOPING summers will be better when the solar will really do its work.
 
#37 ·
Looks like there is some news here:

Starting in Europe on the Ionity network with mid 2023 vehicles.

No comment in whether it's backward compatible though..
 
#38 ·
I used Electrify America for the first time yesterday. The display on the charger prompts me to “plug in to the vehicle first”, and in a brief time the vehicle started charging without me pulling my phone out at all.

I did notice it correctly displayed the cost is $0 because of the 2-year complimentary BMW charging, however I couldn’t see the charge session on my phone app at all, either during or after the session.

I didn’t realize Plug and Charge is available on the i4 like the Taycan, did anybody have the same experience?
 
#41 ·
Not yet.


They're saying mid 2023 builds.. no idea if it's backwards compatible.
 
#46 ·
Ah a neighbouring post explained the mystery..


tl;dr EA is having trouble after the last upgrade and all charging has been free everywhere. Shame it got my hopes up that i4s’ are getting Plug and Charge..
 
#47 ·
Here the bmw charging plan is flat per minute including charges from power operators (€0,05/min AC, €0,31/min DC) for 1 year (monthly subscription is needed for year 2 onwards).

This is advantageous in fast chargers (eg at 11kwh=€0,27/kWh) but for slow chargers not so (eg at 3,7kw=€0,81/kWh). In DC also depends on where you are in the charging curve (low SoC fast speed, high SoC slow speed).

In slow chargers is cheaper to use another card with a kwh (~€0,20/kwh) +power operator tarif (~0,06/kwh).

So here is not strait forward the bmw plug and charge. Also the cards interact with a public system that works for all electricity cards (M obie) which is not part of Ionity.
 
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