Photo: Mercedes-Benz
Efforts to electrify the vehicles we drive on a daily basis have been going on for more than a decade now. Aside from a flood of EVs being put on the road recently, that also means most carmakers who are important to the industry have in place a sort of plan for the charging needs of the owners. Many also have their own charging hubs already, but until this week, at least in North America, Mercedes-Benz was not one of them.
At the time of writing the Germans have quite a solid offering of EVs in the U.S., comprising five distinct models: two versions of the EQS, two of the EQE, and the EQB. More are, obviously, on the way, and that can only mean the company has to do something on the charging front as well.
That something is a $1 billion plan to build "North America's fastest EV charging network," and that by the end of the decade. That means it should offer charging speeds of under 20 minutes for vehicles to get from 10 to 80 percent.
Being put together with help from specialized renewable energy company MN8, the network just opened its first-ever hub, located at the Mercedes HQ in Sandy Springs, Georgia.
The hub is operated by a joint venture between the carmaker and MN8 called Mercedes-Benz HPC. The place is filled with 400 kW chargers supplied by ChargePoint and has a lounge where customers can wait until their vehicles get their juice.
The hub can accommodate not only cars, but also has room for vans of EVs that pull trailers as long as 26 feet (8 meters) behind them. On top of it all, all the electricity generated for charging needs comes from clean sources, making the hub carbon neutral.
By the end of the current year (that means over the next month and a half), Mercedes-Benz plans to open similar locations in Texas and across the Southeast. The overall plan is to have in place no less than 400 such locations across the North American continent by the end of the decade.
In all, the German carmaker is betting on a total of 2,500 chargers to be deployed at these locations, meaning an average of six per hub. Some of them will be located at retail locations - deals have been struck for that with Simon and Buc-ees in Texas, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia.
Perhaps the most important thing about these locations is that they will not be exclusive to Mercedes-Benz cars. Just like the one that just opened this week in Sandy Springs, all of them will be open to all types of electric vehicles, regardless of make and model, and their drivers. That is made possible by the availability of CCS1 and NACS connectors at every location.
That something is a $1 billion plan to build "North America's fastest EV charging network," and that by the end of the decade. That means it should offer charging speeds of under 20 minutes for vehicles to get from 10 to 80 percent.
Being put together with help from specialized renewable energy company MN8, the network just opened its first-ever hub, located at the Mercedes HQ in Sandy Springs, Georgia.
The hub is operated by a joint venture between the carmaker and MN8 called Mercedes-Benz HPC. The place is filled with 400 kW chargers supplied by ChargePoint and has a lounge where customers can wait until their vehicles get their juice.
The hub can accommodate not only cars, but also has room for vans of EVs that pull trailers as long as 26 feet (8 meters) behind them. On top of it all, all the electricity generated for charging needs comes from clean sources, making the hub carbon neutral.
By the end of the current year (that means over the next month and a half), Mercedes-Benz plans to open similar locations in Texas and across the Southeast. The overall plan is to have in place no less than 400 such locations across the North American continent by the end of the decade.
In all, the German carmaker is betting on a total of 2,500 chargers to be deployed at these locations, meaning an average of six per hub. Some of them will be located at retail locations - deals have been struck for that with Simon and Buc-ees in Texas, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia.
Perhaps the most important thing about these locations is that they will not be exclusive to Mercedes-Benz cars. Just like the one that just opened this week in Sandy Springs, all of them will be open to all types of electric vehicles, regardless of make and model, and their drivers. That is made possible by the availability of CCS1 and NACS connectors at every location.
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