Future Ford EV Owners May Be Able To Rate Chargers

Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for an EV charger rating system that may be used in future Ford vehicles, Ford Authority has learned.

The patent was filed on March 3rd, 2023, published on September 5th, 2024, and assigned serial number 0294088.

The Ford Authority Take

Along with a general lack of charging infrastructure, current EV chargers are also known to have their fair share of issues, with downtime becoming a real concern among operators. To help improve these issues, Ford has filed a few patents recently, presenting us with ideas for a real-time charging point availability system and real-time third party charger info systems, to name just a couple. Now, this newly published patent aims to give Ford EV owners the ability to rate chargers, too.

There are already some third parties that offer up the ability to rate EV chargers, of course, but this concept would take that idea a bit further by implementing these ratings into Ford’s native software. That way, when users are looking for chargers to utilize, they will see scores based on real user data, so they can choose a better option – not to mention see which chargers might be unreliable or located in areas that lack amenities, for example.

Such a ratings system could be a boon not only for Ford EV owners, but also, those that operate EV chargers, as they could receive feedback on how those users view their stations. This could be used to make improvements in all kinds of areas, ranging from reliability to cleanliness and even safety, with some current stations being located in less than ideal areas in some cases. Overall, it’s a pretty simple yet potentially very useful concept, and one that may very well come to fruition in the near future as a result.

Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.

Brett Foote

Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.

View Comments

  • We need reasonable ev insurance. Ford should have an ev policy for ford owner with ev. When I purchased my f150 ev my insurance was $600 /year. This year it is $2500. HELP Us. I wanted to buy another Ford ev but that is not possible with the insurance cost.

  • Plugshare is a low key web site for locating nearby charge stations. It can also allow users to rate charger conditions, even add pictures of the actual stations so a user can decide if the visit is worth trying. My home charger (Level 2) is included.

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