Mercedes has taken advantage of its time at CES in Las Vegas to announce a particularly interesting novelty for electric car owners. Just like Tesla did at the time, the German brand will build its own global network of charging stations for these types of vehicles.
Markus Schaefer, Mercedes’ technology director, was in charge of explaining the reason for the project: to improve the experience of drivers of their electric cars because they had made it clear to them what they think about current charging solutions. The level of dissatisfaction led the brand to want to “do things right, the way we believe they should work”.
More than 10,000 chargers in Europe
To do this, Mercedes will invest 1,000 million euros in acquiring land and installing thousands of charging stations. The deployment of its own network should begin in 2023 in the United States, to later hand over the baton to Europe, China and other markets important. Its charging points will be located, at regular intervals, near highways, the main intersections and the most relevant cities.
Mercedes will land in the US with more than 400 stations equipped with more than 2,500 high-power chargers: Worldwide, the German network will have more than 10,000 sockets. To shape their project they will work with ChargePoint (which will take care of the technical aspects of the centers and chargers) and with MN8 Energy, which will provide renewable energy for the stations.
Some of these cargo areas will be equipped with photovoltaic panels and Mercedes wants to equip them with a series of driver amenities: refreshment points, toilets, covered points to be protected from the elements and surveillance cameras for greater security.
for all electric
Mercedes plans for each of these zones to have between four and thirty chargers, whose charging power may reach 350 kW. With these figures it will be possible for each car to recover the capacity of its batteries “to its maximum capacity, minimizing waiting times”.
The most relevant thing, without a doubt, is that the seasons they will be accessible to all electric vehicles… regardless of their brand. However, the owners of Mercedes models will have some advantages: discounts, dynamic charger reservations that will be updated based on the time it takes the driver to arrive, route planning based on charging points with reservations in them to reach your destination on time and with autonomy…