How to navigate to Tesla Chargers?

[solastobann]

Hi all, yesterday I received my Ford NACS adapter (order placed on Feb 29) and went to the local Tesla store to try it out. It worked fine, no issues at all. Plug and charge worked right off the bat.

But if I wanted to precondition before charging, I don't understand how to locate or navigate to Tesla chargers. If it matters I have an 2023 XLT Lightning with the 12" display. I went to Nav - Where To - Explore - Chargers - Ultra Fast Chargers. I was presented with a long list of local charging spots but none were Tesla.

So how is this done? I understand I can manually enter the street address for a Tesla charger but that won't start preconditioning.

Thanks for any pointers,
Alan Rovner
Vancouver, Wash.

One of the easiest ways to find Tesla chargers is the Tesla app. Roll down to the bottom then go right to add your truck as a non-Tesla. You can find Tesla chargers on the app. At the very beginning of the app is Charge Your EV. Find a charger. My app always seems to start at West Africa for some bizarre reason but if you put in your location, it will pop over there, unless you are in West Africa, of course. Once you have your truck registered, you can pay via the FordPass app, but it is generally $.10-$.20 more per kilowatt hour than if you either have a Tesla or you join the Tesla App, for $12.99 a month. I have found that this pays for itself every month. Check out another app called ABRP for a better route planner. That one, you can have it search for specific brands of chargers, including Teslas. Happy trails to you.

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[VAF84]

I just received the A2Z adapter as the one from Ford won't be here until November-ish and I'll be making a trip in a couple weeks (and I'm ok with having a backup). As I'm in FL, how important is it to precondition? I do have the max tow package, so is this kind of the best way if it's *that* important? So far I've only charged once at an EA station, mostly just to test that it would work.

I DC charge all the time over 20k miles/9 months, and for what it's worth I never precondition. Mostly because the majority of fast chargers I use don't appear in my Ford nav. As others have said, this is probably more useful in colder climates further north than the areas I typically venture to.

Download the Tesla app. It will show you the location and status Of their supercharger network and what’s available.

I did that before I had a real adapter. Couldn’t get the borrowed adapter to charge, but that might have been before the update.

problem was Tesla is at .70kwh and my house less than 1 mile away is .23 including taxes.

Still waiting for my free adapter to show up.

Rick

Tesla charges $.70kW?? That's insane. Even with non-member pricing EA/Tesla never breach $.56 for me (in states between CO and KY). At my Tesla member rate of $.37kW I'm breaking even with unleaded gas. To be honest, I'm not sure I'd be driving an EV truck if my public charging options were that expensive. Caveat that I do a ton of driving away from home.

 

[csukoh78]

FordPass has Google maps access built in now. In FordPass you can use "energy"-"public charging "-choose a charger and a choice to navigate via Google maps or Apple maps pops up.

yeah I don't know what kind of map navigation system the truck uses by default but it's fucking awful.

I can't tell you how many times the truck navigation would either not find what I was looking for or put me several blocks away from it. My wife and I joke that you can use the truck navigation to get within 5 miles and then we use Google maps to get where you're going on your iPhone

 

[potato]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is "preconditioning"

A very good question. In the context of this thread, people are talking about *battery* preconditioning, which is heating or cooling the battery so it can accept a higher rate of charge right from the get go when you hook it up to the charger.

The word is also used for *cabin* preconditioning (a mistake in my opinion, but I'm not sure what else we should call it) which is setting up the climate control, heated/cooled seats and steering wheel for your scheduled departure. There has been lots of confusion when one person is talking battery and another is talking cabin using the same word.

 

[Phil3315]

I have had an adapter for months now, and some Tesla chargers show up in the Ford navigation and some don’t, seems like about 30% of compatible Tesla chargers show up in Ford navigation. Not sure what their excuses for that. Getting the agreement with Tesla was great for us, but if you don’t know they’re there and have to use 3 different apps to find them, it turns the EV experience bad again. There is no reason it should be this difficult

 

[JRT]

Not all Tesla charging stations will work, you have to goto a V3 or V4, which is why everyone says use Tesla app to find, not Ford nav. There is a lot of complication being added here, I map my route before leaving, hand write down all the Tesla stops on a paper and enter them in order for my trips in Google map. Easy as that and the precondition is getting way blown out of proportion to actual benefit.

 

[jmb01]

Not all Tesla charging stations will work, you have to goto a V3 or V4, which is why everyone says use Tesla app to find, not Ford nav. There is a lot of complication being added here, I map my route before leaving, hand write down all the Tesla stops on a paper and enter them in order for my trips in Google map. Easy as that and the precondition is getting way blown out of proportion to actual benefit.

Oof, hand write...you know you can set up your whole trip in Google Maps or Waze website and then "send to phone"?

 

[invertedspear]

Y'all plan too much. I charge to 80%, and while it's charging use plugshare to find the next charger on my route 150-200 miles away, stick that in apple maps and repeat till I arrive.

 

[JRT]

Oof, hand write...you know you can set up your whole trip in Google Maps or Waze website and then "send to phone"?

Yup have done it, but then your in the middle of nowhere and can't get Google to load. I write down so I'm not stuck.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Yup have done it, but then your in the middle of nowhere and can't get Google to load. I write down so I'm not stuck.

Have you tried using "offline maps" for Google Maps, downloaded to your mobile device?

 

[bmw325_num99]

One of the easiest ways to find Tesla chargers is the Tesla app. Roll down to the bottom then go right to add your truck as a non-Tesla. You can find Tesla chargers on the app. At the very beginning of the app is Charge Your EV. Find a charger. My app always seems to start at West Africa for some bizarre reason but if you put in your location, it will pop over there, unless you are in West Africa, of course. Once you have your truck registered, you can pay via the FordPass app, but it is generally $.10-$.20 more per kilowatt hour than if you either have a Tesla or you join the Tesla App, for $12.99 a month. I have found that this pays for itself every month. Check out another app called ABRP for a better route planner. That one, you can have it search for specific brands of chargers, including Teslas. Happy trails to you.

In case you are curious, I think the Tesla app map defaults to 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude, which is western Africa, as you point out. Then it gets your location from your phone and usually zooms to your area.

 

[Zprime29]

Having charged multiple times in 110F+ temps, I'd say preconditioning does help. When I don't, the boost portion of the charge curve is cut in half and I rapidly drop to under 100kW. If I precondition, the boost phase lasts longer and I tend to stay well above 100kW. As to how many minutes that saves....depends on how much charge you need. @MickeyAO said the high temps are really bad for the batteries so I always use the tips/tricks mentioned here to precondition the battery in hot weather.

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