Mercedes Pulls a Tesla, Will Build Its Own "Supercharger" Charging Network

Off-Ramp
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May shake things up. Time will tell.

https://www.motortrend.com/events/mercedes-ev-charging-network-plan-2023-ces/

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Very interestingā€¦

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2,500 stations in 4-5 years?

This sounds extremely optimistic

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4

So soon? Whatā€™s the rush? If only someone had thought about this 10 years agošŸ˜‰.

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Lets seeā€¦using ICE as a referenceā€¦

I can only take my car to Chevron.

Well, I can only take my car to Shell.

Mine can only be filled at Exxon stations.

Ooooof. Just make it standardized already!

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Iā€™m surprised at least the big 3 in America havenā€™t gotten together to do this in a big way. Theyā€™re not against working together already , e.g GM & Ford w/ the 10 spd auto, so why not pool their resources for this.

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A few of the Germans (I think BMW and MB) were working together on autonomous driving but split up after they had philosophical differences on how those systems should behave. Mercedes is probably thinking they donā€™t need a partner and Mercedes branded stations will bring in more revenue than co-branding.

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I work with CT systems, most of which are designed in Germany. Believe me, it has never crossed their mind that they are doing anything other than perfect. When you make a feature request, they proceed by telling you why it is the way it is.

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Itā€™s not that other cars canā€™t use the system, its just prioritized for MB. Plus, theyā€™re using ChargePoint as the preferred provider.

Analogous to current ICE Mercedes having a special refuel program with Exxon.

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What does ā€œCTā€ mean?

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Computed tomography. Like a medical CAT scan but for industrial purposes

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Chargepoint oddly enough have been the most reliable stations for me aside from Tesla but also among the slowest.

Hope theyā€™re using the new 350KW units and not the ā€œ125KWā€ shared units with 200A max cables (REMA)

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I read an press release that MB will in fact be using 350Kw, the PR claimed a charge speed of about 20 miles a minute.

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And already we are off to a dubious start.

Anyone remotely familiar with EV would not quote ā€œmilesā€ as the output/input of the charger/battery.

How many miles youā€™ll get is affected by so many things such as temperature, average speed, incline, etc.

Does a gas station tell you how many miles you pumped or how many gallons?

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