Farm Country Ford installs EV charging station
FORD – ELECTRIC
By Russell Gagnon
Blade Staff Writer
“EVs (electric vehicles) are going to be a big part of the automotive future, and we're going to be a part of it,” said Farm Country Ford Kawasaki's Darell Gallegos.
To that end, Farm Country Ford Kawasaki has installed its first EV charging station at the dealership on Sixth Street.
“Ford is set up with the Blink network, so you're going to find that most Ford dealers are on that network,” Gallegos said.
Blink Charging Co is a leading owner, operator, and provider of EV charging equipment and services.
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Miami Beach, Florida, Blink currently deploys approximately 5,000 public charging ports in the United States and 30,000 charging ports around the world.
Gallegos said the cost of using the charging port at his dealership is thirty-nine cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for members and forty-two cents per kWh for guests.
“If you buy a brand new Ford, you're automatically a member,” Gallegos said. “Or you can join the network. Most EV owners are familiar with the process: you pull up to the port and use your phone app to access the network and pay. The charging station also has a digital screen, so you can always use your card if you're not in the network.”
Farm Country Ford Kawasaki has a Blink Level 2 port, which means that it will, on average, take about four-to-six hours to charge your EV from completely empty to completely full. A lot of homeowners with EVs have a Level 3 port installed in their home for overnight charging. With a Level 3 port, it generally takes between 8-10 hours to fully charge an EV.
“In some places, like on I-70, you'll find a Level 1 port that can charge a vehicle in about an hour,” Gallegos said. “But it's also triple the cost.”
Gallegos is surprised by the number of people stopping at his dealership to charge their vehicles. Almost all of them have been from out of town and located his port on the network. “We're averaging two or three a week, and to be honest I was very surprised by that. We've had people stop in from as far away as Washington. We had a Rivian truck come in.”
There are benefits and drawbacks to owning an all-electric vehicle. On the plus side, there's no fuel required so you save money on gas. EVs are also environmentally friendly because they do not emit pollutants.
The drawback of driving an EV is that they can't travel as far as conventional vehicles, and “fueling” an EV takes much longer than pulling up to the pump at a gas station. And, on average, electric cars are more expensive to buy. According to cnbc.com, the average price of an EV is about $56,000.
Gallegos is excited by the EVs that Ford is producing. They include the all-electric F-150 Lightening truck, with an EPA-estimated range for the base model of 230 miles, and the Mustang Mach-E.
Ford hopes to begin selling its Lightening truck for a suggested sticker price of around $40,000.
The federal government offers up to $7,500 in tax incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles.
Gallegos hopes that his dealership will begin selling EVs in 2023. “If you've tried to buy a new car lately, you know how much of a process that is at the moment. Hopefully the chip shortage and supply bottlenecks will be fixed soon, and we can move forward. We've got our approval from Ford and are now EV-certified, so I expect we'll be a part of the 2023 order bank.”