Ford revealed on May 9 that it would join the U.S. Joint Office of Energy and Transportation in the National Charging Experience Consortium’s debut, a new initiative to hasten the development of solutions to enhance EV charging across the country.
The automaker will join a cross-industry partnership of automakers, charging providers, utilities, and Department of Energy national laboratories to promote innovation and all-around improvements for the present and future public charging infrastructure and the complete customer experience.
The consortium will immediately concentrate on payment processing, user interfaces, and vehicle-to-charger connection and work toward collaborative diagnostic data sharing to better assist solutions for all stakeholders.
According to Bill Crider, head of global charging and energy services at Ford, “Creating a seamless and simple public charging experience requires collaboration across the entire electric vehicle ecosystem and remains key to accelerating EV adoption and providing customers with range confidence.”
Over the next two years, the national labs will collaborate with the industry to measure and identify opportunities to significantly improve the customer experience with public EV charging infrastructure. National laboratories will work closely with groups representing a variety of segments of the EV industry to address the following three issues to move closer to these outcomes:
- Processing payments and user interface
- Communication between the car’s charger
- Sharing of diagnostic data.
Additionally, the national laboratories will collaborate with consumer advocacy organizations to develop methods for evaluating consumers’ charging experience and gathering consumer feedback to monitor industry development over time.
