Mercedes-Benz Offers Hints Of Future Charging Areas

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Mercedes-Benz, like plenty of different producers, found out over the previous few years that counting on charging firms and authorities to energy electrical automobiles wasn’t going to work out.

This, in fact, flies within the face of what automotive producers have at all times completed. It was their job to construct the vehicles and supply guarantee restore cash, and it was the job of sellers to do the ultimate sale and carry out the repairs. It was then the job of oil firms and fuel station house owners to deal with powering them. The thought at first was to proceed this association, even when these weirdos at Tesla had been making an attempt to do all of it. Change sucks, proper?

However, as soon as a bunch of EVs began showing on the roads, the issues with counting on charging firms grew to become obvious. House charging (a minimum of for individuals with a storage or driveway) wasn’t an issue, however non-Tesla EV charging stations weren’t holding up underneath the stress of accelerating use, particularly in California and alongside the busiest interstate highways.

Dealing with this dilemma, producers found out that they’d must do two issues. First, they had been going to wish to hitch the Tesla charging community. This meant paying Tesla billions, agreeing to vary the charging plug, and in any other case on the point of cost on the solely stations that appeared to be working effectively on the time. However, in the long term, producers would wish to contribute to dependable charging with their very own charging firms.

Totally different firms are going about this in numerous methods. Seven producers (BMW Group, GM, Honda, Hyundai/Kia, Mercedes-Benz Group, and Stellantis) teamed as much as begin iONNA, a charging community that’s simply getting off the bottom with extra dependable European charging {hardware} at charging stations with higher facilities than most. GM, exterior of the iONNA effort, is working with EVgo to construct charging stations, many at Pilot/Flying J truck stops.

Mercedes-Benz is working by itself charging community by partnering with ChargePoint. The objective is to ultimately construct 400 of those stations, every with respectable facilities, security, and nice lighting. However, most significantly, the objective is to ensure they’re dependable and work effectively when individuals want a cost.

I received an opportunity to make use of one of many first Mercedes-Benz charging stations just a few months in the past east of Dallas, Texas (Royse Metropolis, to be particular) at a buc-ee’s journey heart.

As promised, it was dependable and the situation felt fairly protected. Buc-ee’s at all times has an ideal set of facilities, together with bogs, meals, drinks, and so forth. All in all, the expertise was a optimistic one, and apart from the truth that the variety of stalls was considerably restricted, the Tesla Supercharger station throughout the car parking zone doesn’t do any higher. When you’ve got a automotive that may pull greater than 250 kW or prefers 800-volt charging, it’s the higher place to go for now.

However, pretty much as good as these stations are, Mercedes-Benz hasn’t actually instructed us the place we are able to count on extra of those to pop up, a minimum of till now.

A New Map On The Web site

Just lately, the corporate’s web site had a brand new map seem on this web page, exhibiting us the place the present stations are and, extra importantly, the place Mercedes would love extra of them to be constructed!

In fact, the map isn’t very particular, apart from about the place the present stations are. Circles, with the smaller ones being lighter and the bigger ones being darker, point out the place the upcoming stations are alleged to be. My guess is that the corporate will likely be placing a higher variety of stations in the place the large, darkish circles are, whereas specializing in placing in as little as one station for the smaller circles, which might make sense.

Wanting on the map, it’s clear that Mercedes desires to concentrate on cities, and extra particularly the most important metro areas. If you happen to have a look at an inventory of the most important cities in the US, this map has all of them coated. New York and Philadelphia are coated by enormous circles, and smaller circles cowl the entire Northeast Megaregion from Boston to Washington. Los Angeles (the #2 metro by inhabitants) can be effectively coated, as is far of California (the place most of the EVs are). Dallas and Houston (each prime ten cities) are coated, in addition to the remainder of the Texas Triangle. Atlanta and southern Florida additionally get large circles.

This can be a good method, as cities want lots of public charging for EVs to actually work out. Business automobiles, rideshare automobiles and taxis, and public automobiles all want locations to cost throughout downtime. Individuals who don’t have driveways or garages with charging may even must cost, however that’s an issue that must be solved, as house charging is one of the best method to EVs. Individuals who drove an uncommon quantity in a day and easily want just a few extra miles to complete the grocery getting and different errands may even put lots of demand on EV charging.

However simply because Mercedes is spending some huge cash on city charging doesn’t meant that rural areas and interstates between the cities are getting no consideration. Masking particular corridors doesn’t appear to be a precedence, as you don’t actually see any rows of dots that observe these highways, apart from the notable exception of the I-44 hall. In most different circumstances, Mercedes appears to be specializing in getting mid-sized cities alongside these interstate routes, like Brownsville, El Paso, and Albuquerque.

All this having been mentioned, there are some unusual issues on the map. For one, there are some pretty massive metro areas that aren’t getting a lot consideration. Las Vegas is a good instance, as is Oklahoma Metropolis. Salt Lake Metropolis is getting greater than minimal consideration, however remains to be getting as a lot consideration as Chicago (the #3 metropolis in the US). Memphis, Tennessee, isn’t a serious metropolis, nevertheless it’s getting much less consideration than El Paso. I’m positive that Mercedes-Benz has some good causes for all of this stuff, however no one else has been instructed.

Thankfully, no one goes to be anticipated to depend on the Mercedes-Benz community completely. The corporate appears to be searching for locations the place assist in charging is definitely wanted and never making an attempt to be the whole lot to everybody.

Featured picture from the Mercedes-Benz web site (honest use).