Electromobility: Mercedes will start building e-charging stations in 2023

The car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz has finalized its plans for its own charging network for electric cars.

Electromobility: Mercedes will start building e-charging stations in 2023

The car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz has finalized its plans for its own charging network for electric cars. The first fast charging stations are to be built in Germany and France this year, said Franz Reiner, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Mobility, the German Press Agency in Stuttgart. He did not give exact numbers. The construction is going very well, even if there is currently no charging station, said the head of Mercedes' financing company.

As in the USA, the fourth quarter of the year is expected in Germany and France. In the USA, the first 20 charging parks - each with several charging points - are planned for this year. At the beginning of the year, Mercedes announced that it would set up 10,000 fast charging points for electric cars worldwide by the end of the decade. Mercedes customers should have preferential access to the charging points with a charging capacity of up to 350 kilowatts, for example through a reservation function.

charging infrastructure

The company is investing a low single-digit billion euro amount for this, said Reiner. Of the 10,000 charging points, over 2,000 are to be built in the USA. According to Reiner, about the same number are to be set up in Europe. The rest is therefore accounted for by China and other important markets.

"The charging infrastructure still has a lot of potential," said Reiner. "We will definitely not be able to cover everything with our fast charging stations." These are an addition to the entire infrastructure. One thing is clear: the plans of the Stuttgart-based company only play a minor role in the global expansion goals - the federal government alone wants one million publicly accessible plugs by 2030.

Other car companies are also working on the charging infrastructure. According to its own statements, the US electric car company Tesla already operates around 40,000 fast charging points worldwide. The VW Group wants to set up a good 45,000 high-performance charging points with partners by 2025. In Europe, Mercedes-Benz is taking a two-pronged approach: together with its competitors BMW, Ford, Hyundai, the Volkswagen Group with Audi and Porsche, and BlackRocks as a financial investor, Mercedes operates the Ionity fast-charging network with over 1,900 charging stations in 24 European countries.

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