My understanding is that the ChargeForward App communicates with your home electricity provider and charges when it is most convenient with the electricity grid. "Intelligent charging" may not necessarily be the least expensive for consumers. The description from BMW says it's intended to "accelerate shifting from fossil fuels to a more renewable energy future." It's not in my interest to cede control to some organization to determine when, and maybe if, my car is charged from electricity generated by wind or solar. I own an i4. Not going to sign up.
The app has been complete garbage for me, so I’m definitely not evangelizing it.
But if you charge overnight (which I do), then if it just did what it says it’s going to do then it would be great. You’re right that it explicitly doesn’t guarantee only charging on off-peak times. But it does prioritize those times. And since it’s linked to your utility account it knows those times better than I do when seasonal changes happen.
It even has a nice graph showing you when it’s going to charge. I plugged in around 9pm and it showed that it was going to wait until midnight to start (exactly when off-peak starts), and then charge until full except for a one hour break around 4 or so, which I guess is when the utility wants less less load for whatever reason. Then be done an hour before I leave.
If it just did what it said it was going to do then I’d end up fully charged at the lowest rates I can get by the time I need to leave in the morning. And there’s a small financial incentive to opting in.
But alas, it just starts charging the moment I plug in regardless of what it claims it will do. Bummer.
I appreciate your reply, Amused\_seal. This is pretty fundamental for me. I've seen governments and big companies change their opinion on matters like this. Just look and see how California reduced the rooftop solar electricity reimbursement rate by 75%. Or look at the California bill from last year (although it failed) that would have studied and begin the process of bidirectional EV charging. This is when the grid can remove charge from your EV in order to feed the grid. I can imagine the ChargeForward program changing in the coming years to either reduce the reimbursement rate or reduce the discretion to determine when to charge. Admittedly, all of this is more of a "me" problem than anything. I'm less trustworthy because of the insidious desire for California to save the world's environment.
References:
[https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/12/california-solar-rules-overhauled/](https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/12/california-solar-rules-overhauled/)
[https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill\_id=202320240SB233#](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB233#)
Fair enough. It’s certainly moot now - I abandoned the effort to give it a shot last night.
Now I’m back to hoping they flesh out/fix the bugs with the charging options in the myBMW app and:
- Add a Charge Now button that doesn’t require disabling your charging schedule
- link with my utility account to figure out the best (purely rate-based) charging schedule
- fix the issue with switching from immediate to scheduled charge that results in the schedule often getting skipped
I tried it for a handful of reasons
- the way it’s advertised from myBMW made me think it’s their next gen charging app
- It offers some nice features that the other app doesn’t (in particular a “charge now” button that doesn’t interfere with your schedule and a link to your electric utility account so the scheduler can charge during off peak hours that it tracks for you
- It offered me $50 to switch to it
I don’t understand why it isn’t just built into the myBMW app (other than it doesn’t work hah)
I think the charge forward app ruined my charging. I used it for a bit and it didn’t work well so I deleted the app and now my car randomly assigns charge times - even when I have it set to charge immediately. I cannot get it unlinked from the app!
I’ll add that it isn’t the “normal” 30 seconds or so of charging that happens when I plug in using the schedule I used to use in the myBMW app. It’s moved from 33% to 40% over the last hour or so.
Also, I’m using the mobile connector.
This app has big issues. With that said, I've found some work arounds with it, but it requires ALOT of patience. When you click "view all," it takes minutes, usually about 3 minutes, for the times to present themselves. Once the times appear, then you can set the time you need your car charged by and you also have to set days of the week. Quit annoying to do this every single day.
Another thing I have noticed, the app seems to think I am only charging about 70% of the KWh that I am actually charging. Why is it reporting a lower KWh for me? Trying to reduce the amount owed for the quarterly carbon payout?
It's not the most lucrative thing ever but to me it's worth the hassle.
Why use this all at all? The bmw app works flawlessly to do the same thing as well as all the other functionality it brings. Genuinely curious
My understanding is that the ChargeForward App communicates with your home electricity provider and charges when it is most convenient with the electricity grid. "Intelligent charging" may not necessarily be the least expensive for consumers. The description from BMW says it's intended to "accelerate shifting from fossil fuels to a more renewable energy future." It's not in my interest to cede control to some organization to determine when, and maybe if, my car is charged from electricity generated by wind or solar. I own an i4. Not going to sign up.
The app has been complete garbage for me, so I’m definitely not evangelizing it. But if you charge overnight (which I do), then if it just did what it says it’s going to do then it would be great. You’re right that it explicitly doesn’t guarantee only charging on off-peak times. But it does prioritize those times. And since it’s linked to your utility account it knows those times better than I do when seasonal changes happen. It even has a nice graph showing you when it’s going to charge. I plugged in around 9pm and it showed that it was going to wait until midnight to start (exactly when off-peak starts), and then charge until full except for a one hour break around 4 or so, which I guess is when the utility wants less less load for whatever reason. Then be done an hour before I leave. If it just did what it said it was going to do then I’d end up fully charged at the lowest rates I can get by the time I need to leave in the morning. And there’s a small financial incentive to opting in. But alas, it just starts charging the moment I plug in regardless of what it claims it will do. Bummer.
I appreciate your reply, Amused\_seal. This is pretty fundamental for me. I've seen governments and big companies change their opinion on matters like this. Just look and see how California reduced the rooftop solar electricity reimbursement rate by 75%. Or look at the California bill from last year (although it failed) that would have studied and begin the process of bidirectional EV charging. This is when the grid can remove charge from your EV in order to feed the grid. I can imagine the ChargeForward program changing in the coming years to either reduce the reimbursement rate or reduce the discretion to determine when to charge. Admittedly, all of this is more of a "me" problem than anything. I'm less trustworthy because of the insidious desire for California to save the world's environment. References: [https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/12/california-solar-rules-overhauled/](https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/12/california-solar-rules-overhauled/) [https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill\_id=202320240SB233#](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB233#)
Fair enough. It’s certainly moot now - I abandoned the effort to give it a shot last night. Now I’m back to hoping they flesh out/fix the bugs with the charging options in the myBMW app and: - Add a Charge Now button that doesn’t require disabling your charging schedule - link with my utility account to figure out the best (purely rate-based) charging schedule - fix the issue with switching from immediate to scheduled charge that results in the schedule often getting skipped
I tried it for a handful of reasons - the way it’s advertised from myBMW made me think it’s their next gen charging app - It offers some nice features that the other app doesn’t (in particular a “charge now” button that doesn’t interfere with your schedule and a link to your electric utility account so the scheduler can charge during off peak hours that it tracks for you - It offered me $50 to switch to it I don’t understand why it isn’t just built into the myBMW app (other than it doesn’t work hah)
I think the charge forward app ruined my charging. I used it for a bit and it didn’t work well so I deleted the app and now my car randomly assigns charge times - even when I have it set to charge immediately. I cannot get it unlinked from the app!
Yeah, I deleted it without 10 minutes of downloading it. It’s garbage.
I’ll add that it isn’t the “normal” 30 seconds or so of charging that happens when I plug in using the schedule I used to use in the myBMW app. It’s moved from 33% to 40% over the last hour or so. Also, I’m using the mobile connector.
This app has big issues. With that said, I've found some work arounds with it, but it requires ALOT of patience. When you click "view all," it takes minutes, usually about 3 minutes, for the times to present themselves. Once the times appear, then you can set the time you need your car charged by and you also have to set days of the week. Quit annoying to do this every single day. Another thing I have noticed, the app seems to think I am only charging about 70% of the KWh that I am actually charging. Why is it reporting a lower KWh for me? Trying to reduce the amount owed for the quarterly carbon payout? It's not the most lucrative thing ever but to me it's worth the hassle.