Mercedes-Benz said Thursday it would install a network of 2,500 high-power chargers across the United States by 2027, a sign that the German automaker is expanding its commitment to electric vehicles by borrowing a page from Tesla’s playbook.
The fast chargers, distributed over 400 stations, will operate under the Mercedes brand. Owners of the company’s cars are given preferential access, although the network is open to cars from other manufacturers.
Tesla started building charging stations years ago, and the network has been vital to the automaker’s success by allaying car buyers’ fears that they won’t have enough places to plug in their vehicles and be able to park on the side of the road. beaches. Those US fast chargers will only work with Tesla cars, though the company has said it is opening up the network to other brands.
Mercedes’ planned charging network is the latest sign that the company, which has lost customers to Tesla, is taking electric vehicles seriously. Last year, the company opened a battery plant in Alabama and began building an electric SUV, the EQS, at its facility near Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Even when complete, Mercedes’ network will only be about a third the size of Tesla’s now. Still, the effort is more ambitious than that of other traditional automakers. Electrify America has 3,400 fast chargers in 790 locations across the United States, but doesn’t prominently display the Volkswagen brand, even though the German company founded the network and owns a majority of the company.
“This is a strategic decision to shut up,” Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius told reporters on Thursday.
The company, already a partner in Ionity, a European charging network, also plans to install Mercedes-branded chargers in Europe and China, but will start with the United States.
Mercedes shares the costs of the network with MN8, a solar energy producer that will supply the locations with energy. The companies said they plan to apply for federal grants available to companies building chargers.
Mercedes owners can reserve charging time on the network, which is designed to work automatically with Mercedes cars, so drivers don’t have to do anything other than plug in the vehicle.
Charging and paying “all happen under the covers, in an invisible way,” Pasquale Romano, the CEO of ChargePoint, a charger maker that will supply charging equipment to Mercedes, said Thursday.
The automaker plans to begin building the charging hubs this year. At least some of the devices will pump power into cars at 350 kilowatts per hour, much faster than chargers typically found in the United States.
The hubs will be close to restaurants and restrooms, Mercedes said, for example near luxury shopping malls frequented by the company’s well-to-do customers. The hubs will have surveillance cameras for security.
Mercedes is trying to address complaints from electric vehicle owners that they feel unsafe using chargers in remote areas. The hubs will be in “a secure location,” said Markus Schäfer, Mercedes’ chief technology officer, “not in the backyard of a shopping center next to the dumpster.”
