Working with ChargePoint, it will install more than 2,500 chargers at 400 sites by 2027:
On Thursday, Mercedes-Benz announced that it is entering the DC fast-charging arena for electric vehicles. The German automaker is in the midst of an electrification push and a plan to be carbon-neutral by 2039, and it evidently doesn't believe that the current charging infrastructure is as good as its new EVs, so it's doing something about the situation. Mercedes says it plans to deploy more than 10,000 fast chargers around the world, starting in North America.
The new network is separate from and independent of Ionity, the European fast-charging network backed by Mercedes, BMW, Ford, and Volkswagen. Here in the US, Mercedes is partnering with the charging company ChargePoint and MN8 Energy, a solar and battery-storage company. Together, they will deploy more than 2,500 DC fast chargers at more than 400 sites around the US by 2027.
[...] Expect a minimum of four DC chargers at each hub, similar to an Electrify America charging location. But some hubs will have as many as 12 chargers, and there are plans for as many as 30 in some locations. The hubs will use ChargePoint's modular Express Plus system, which is capable of up to 500 kW per charging port, although Mercedes says that chargers will be "up to 350 kW" in power. And load management will ensure that if multiple EVs are charging at the same time, one charger doesn't end up throttling the rest.
[...] In keeping with the company's 2039 sustainability goals, the electricity it uses will come from green energy suppliers or come with renewable energy certificates. Some hubs will use solar to power the lighting and security cameras.
[...] None of this will be particularly cheap. In fact, the initiative will cost more than $1.1 billion (1 billion euro) over the next six or seven years, with the costs split evenly between Mercedes and MN8 Energy. And this is just the start—plans for more charger deployment in Europe and China will be announced in the future.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday January 11 2023, @10:07PM
"Partnering"
this means, they are not doing it themselves, and likely, a more accurate title would be "MB is paying for charging stations"
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Thursday January 12 2023, @02:07AM
The article doesn't say where these stations will be, but the artwork suggests they're thinking of standalone charging stations similar to gas stations. That's not going to work without a few big changes. Motels would be much better places to locate those.
Today, "fast" in the context of charging means 30 minutes, to get to only 80%, and you won't be starting from 0% any more than you'd run a gas tank completely empty. You'll be starting from at least 10%. If you run out of gas, you can get moving again as soon as you can pour a can of gas into the tank. Run that battery out of charge, and you may have no choice but to get a tow. That being the case, running the battery below 10% is risky. Heck, the tradition with gas tanks is to refuel when you get to 25%, for several reasons. One is that gas tank gauges are notoriously inaccurate. I've had my car run out of gas when the needle said I still had 1/8th tank. I've had gas tanks that somehow strand some 2 gallons of gas. You still have gas, the gauge didn't lie to you, but the pump intake can't reach it. More common is the other direction-- your gauge says empty when you still have a gallon that can be used. Manufacturers have deliberately messed with the gauges. Another car had the gauge tuned so that when it read half a tank, that actual amount was really a quarter tank. Felt good to think it was moving glacially and you had plenty of gas, then, when it passed the halfway mark, the level dropped disconcertingly quickly. I don't know how accurate battery charge gauges are, but until I can feel confident that they are much more accurate than the typical gas tank gauge, draining it to what you are told is 10%, is risky.
Range figures are heavily fudged in the manufacturers' favor, deliberately calculated on frugal driving habits, of going a bit slower, like only 60 mph, and not using the A/C. That's not realistic. On most limited access highways, you'd better do at least 70 mph. Real world driving is going to knock very roughly 30% off that range. 30% off, and then 30% off the remainder knocks that 300 mile range down to only 150 miles between charges. Having a downtime of 35 minutes every 150 miles makes for a slow road trip. It can be done, sure. But if it costs you an extra night on the road, another sleep in a motel room, you're not saving yourself anything.
Standalone stations could work, with EVs that have much greater range. If you can go 300 miles before having to endure 25 minutes of down time, because the car has a range of 600 miles, that wouldn't be so bad. Obviously even faster charging times would help, but not as much as more range.
The best way to use current electric cars is not to use public stations at all. Do all your charging at home, and don't take it beyond its round trip range, which for the longest range EVs is about 100 miles. That covers 90% of most people's driving. Of course, using an EV that way means the public charging stations are unnecessary, and useless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12 2023, @03:34AM
Seems to me that Mercedes finally realized that Tesla was eating their lunch (cutting heavily into traditional high-end car sales). Per https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/advice/tesla-supercharger-guide [usnews.com] in 2022, Tesla already has:
"more than 1,400 Supercharger stations in the United States, with a total of more than 7,000 chargers. There are Supercharger stations in all 50 states and in Puerto Rico, as well as in Canada, Mexico and across the world, with more planned."
Compare to the Mercedes plans (from tfa):
> Together, they will deploy more than 2,500 DC fast chargers at more than 400 sites around the US by 2027.
I've never been a big fan of Tesla (and Musk), but on this one they are far out in front of their competition. Mercedes 400 sites, averaged across the 50 states means only 8 per state (clearly they will be more dense in higher population areas...) Road trips in BEV Mercs will likely need to use other charging networks, which are a patchwork of capability.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 12 2023, @02:40PM
EV Charging/Chargers still have issues. Just one of those is not enough chargers. Another is, where's the electricity actually going to come from?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 12 2023, @09:51PM
I attended an EV symposium at SUNY in Farmingdale, Long Island in November. Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Ford, and many other major manufacturers presented their EVs to the attendees. After the morning panel discussions, the attendees could test drive the different models around the campus.
The various presenters self-identified as their companies' EV evangelists. Most of them had powerpoint decks they spoke to, though BMW's rep didn't and spent his time complaining about how jet-lagged he was from a 2-hour flight from Chicago and how he sure looked forward to driving an EV someday. He was the worst of the lot, but with the exception of one company, Dannar [us.com], that really wasn't an EV company, none of them had a clue about what EVs are or what they need. Strange, isn't it, that the designated evangelists for EVs at those major ICE manufacturers don't even themselves understand the thing they are pushing?
None of them understood that their customers were going to need to be able to charge their cars quickly and conveniently. They externalized that issue just like they don't worry about how their gas cars get refueled; that's somebody else's problem (tm). Tesla knew they'd have to answer that question, so they did.
And among all the companies, only Mercedes seemed clued in to the fact that they'd run into a bottleneck with battery supplies fairly quickly, so they announced they were going to break ground on a new battery factory. In three years.
It's just abundantly clear why Tesla is eating their lunch, and will continue to eat their lunch. They're the only company thinking strategically.
But once the test driving portion of the event rolled around, it became even clearer that the ICE engineers were basically told to build gas cars, except that they run on batteries. So that's what they did. Every single model was like their gas models, only electric. Nobody thought outside the box and figured out all the cool things they could do once they were freed from the usual constraints. Once again, only Tesla has done that.
But the part that really made me laugh and laugh was that Tesla was not invited to the symposium but crashed the test driving portion of the day anyway. More people lined up to test drive their cars because they had their own sign-up system that was not clunky and ill-prepared like the other companies had.
Washington DC delenda est.