Figuring out the logistics of charging a single electric vehicle is one thing. What about hundreds?
That’s one of the questions at the heart of a pilot program Ford recently kicked off with Southern Company, an Atlanta-based energy provider whose electric and gas operating companies serve about 9 million customers across seven states.
Southern Company, a longtime customer of Ford’s commercial vehicle division, Ford Pro, has more than 200 electric F-150 Lightning pickup trucks, powered by over 150 chargers, in its fleet. Now, the companies are using Southern’s own fleet to test out managed charging strategies. Goals for the pilot, per a news release, include “optimizing depot charging practices (including electricity use and costs), maximizing vehicle uptime, and minimizing total cost of ownership.”
After six months, Ford and Southern Company will dive into the data and apply the findings to help Southern’s commercial and industrial customers navigate electrification and help the utility provider develop fleet-specific managed charging programs.
“What we’re looking for is, how can we build a blueprint for organizations to successfully navigate the transition to electric vehicles? And then unlock all of the associated benefits with it?” Ananya Gupta, Ford Pro’s senior product manager, told Tech Brew.
Utilizing: Southern Company and its subsidiaries count approximately 587,000 commercial users among their customers. And business users in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi have registered more than 100,000 EVs, per a news release announcing the pilot.
Southern’s subsidiaries already offer numerous EV-related programs. Alabama Power, Georgia Power, and Mississippi Power, for example, all offer some type of rebate to help customers offset electrification costs, and Southern’s service areas provide numerous time-of-use rates.
But Southern hopes to use the pilot to design programs geared specifically toward fleet customers, Lea Clanton, director of business development and innovation for the utility’s New Ventures division, told Tech Brew.
Southern’s goal “is simply to better understand the technology, customer feedback, and the operational implications of managed charging on electric fleets,” Clanton said via email. “We want to learn more about how dynamic pricing can influence charging behavior, how managed charging impacts the driver’s experience, and what potential grid benefits can be derived—all to inform potential future programs, company offerings, and customer guidance.”
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Piloting: Southern Company is providing “synthetic data” on electricity pricing and information on when electricity demand is high so that, in response, Ford can adjust when the trucks are charging, Clanton said.
Working with a utility on the pilot provides a unique opportunity, according to Gupta, because Southern Company knows the ins and outs of the electric grid in addition to its expertise as a fleet operator.
“We are relying and leaning in on Southern’s expertise when it comes to energy prices, how energy is generated, what are the grid conditions,” he said, “and they can help us figure out how we can, through software, through our ecosystem, make sure those are not impacted as we do some of these optimizations.”
The pilot is just the latest way Ford is trying to help its customers figure out the electrification puzzle. The automaker has a program, for example, to help fleet customers cover the costs of installing EV charging equipment. And as Tech Brew previously reported, Ford Pro recently debuted a new tool called E-Switch Assist that helps business owners determine which of their vehicles are the best candidates for electrification.
It’s also another example of automakers working closely with utilities to figure out how to leverage managed charging to help ease grid constraints amid growing energy demand from electrification and new data centers.
“What we hope to see is how much, from a pricing perspective, a customer could have saved if they had managed their charging in the way that we’re doing through the pilot,” Clanton said. “And also just how much capacity we freed up on the grid.”