Ford Dealer in This Tiny Michigan Town Wants to Join the EV Age—Despite Vandalism, Other Challenges

• More densely populated states like Michigan have more EV chargers, but there are many pockets of the state without them, creating a challenge for EV owners.

• Driving home from northern Michigan in an electric Mercedes-Benz, we found two 175-kW DC fast chargers located in the parking lot of the Dean Arbour Ford dealership in West Branch, a town of 2300 people.

• It’s been a difficult experience for this small Ford dealership in a community where gasoline-powered F-150 pickup trucks are the big sellers.

Range anxiety has the potential to become rather acute when pondering a road trip in your battery-electric vehicle, because the whole point of such a jaunt is to see the country in a relaxing way. The smaller the towns, the fewer the chargers, however, so relaxing might not be an option in your long-haul EV.

If that’s true for motorists passing through, then imagine how a shortage of vehicle chargers affects people living in rural areas—and their purchase decisions when vehicle shopping.

Yes, you can consult EV charging maps across the country and think it’s on the way to being pretty well covered, although a few years ago there were hundreds of miles separating charging stations within states such as South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana.

Today, the longest driving distance between EV stations in the lower 48 states is the lonely 119 miles between Tesla Superchargers in Rawlins and Casper, Wyoming, according to ceros.com. Consider this progress.

More densely populated states like Michigan have more chargers, but there are many pockets of the state without chargers, creating a challenge for EV owners.

Driving home 275 miles from northern Michigan to metro Detroit in a Mercedes-Benz EQB all-electric crossover, we were pleased to find (on the PlugShare app) that West Branch had two chargers, right off Interstate 75, 175 miles north of Detroit.

These two 175-kW DC fast chargers were located in the parking lot of the Dean Arbour Ford dealership in this town of 2300 people that generally serves as a popular rest stop for Detroiters heading north.

While it took 30 minutes for the EQB’s battery to top off, I talked at length with the dealership’s general manager, Dean “Skip” Lawrence, about the difficulties encountered as this small business tried to embrace the electric age—and how his dealership came to own two DC fast chargers.

Ford Motor Co. was eager to install some EV chargers about 200 miles north of Detroit, for refueling development vehicles heading north from Dearborn to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for winter testing.

The automaker contacted dealer principal Dean Arbour and asked if he would invest in a charging station, which would help the parent company while also allowing the West Branch dealer to sell all-electric F-150 Lightning pickups and Mustang Mach-Es.

Arbour jumped at the chance and had to shell out tens of thousands of dollars. He figured it was well worth it to get in on the ground floor of the electric revolution.

But things got complicated. EV owners who came to use the station found it malfunctioning, and one person even destroyed the charging coupler by smashing it repeatedly on the cement. Eventually, it was determined both charging stalls needed to be completely replaced, requiring more capital outlay.

Meanwhile, the dealership took delivery of several F-150 Lightnings and didn’t sell a single one. On the day when I stopped in to recharge the Mercedes EQB, a hauler had just left the West Branch dealership loaded with the F-150 Lightnings en route to another showroom in Arizona.

It’s been a difficult experience for this small Ford dealership in a community where gasoline-powered F-150 pickup trucks are the big sellers.

Despite the dealership’s walking distance to I-75, it’s not exactly easy for customers who find this EV charging station in West Branch. On the cold and windy day when I stopped to refuel, there was no shelter or awning over the two parking spaces or the charging stations (which is rather typical—like covered plaza gas stations are likewise typical).

There’s a restroom inside the dealership if you come to charge during business hours, but you might also feel compelled to walk around the showroom and kick some tires. It’s at least one way to bring in some foot traffic for Dean Arbour Ford.

But if you want to eat something while charging, you can walk west more than a half-mile to the big-box Meijer, or more than a half-mile east to a restaurant. Or, keep walking east and you can visit the Tipsy Bear Bistro in downtown West Branch.

Either way, you’re walking along a two-lane highway (M-76) where cars and trucks are whizzing by. Not ideal.

But West Branch, Michigan, doesn’t have the only somewhat remote charging station in America, and surely there are hundreds more that are even more isolated.

This is all part of the journey to establish a proper charging infrastructure, beyond the actual charging ports, themselves.

It takes a village.

Can you share a story about an EV charger you found in an unexpected location? Please comment below.