Whrring #7 To charge or to not charge
Whrring #7 To charge or to not charge
A tale of Mercedes, MG and BMW
On 12th April 2024, Santosh Iyer, MD & CEO of Mercedes India said in an interview with the Times of India and I quote
Our EV charging bays will be open for Tesla cars, just like they are for an EV of any other brand
This is a good thing, and naturally, I checked out their ‘charging bays’.
Mercedes has ‘non-networked’ charging points at their showrooms or service centres. ‘Non-networked’ means that it isn’t available on any app and payment method is likely to be offline. The first point of failure is that users won’t know if a charging spot is busy / available / not working without visiting or calling them.
I cross referenced Mercedes’ showrooms and service center locations on PlugShare across Mumbai and Delhi NCR. I could find only one listing in Mumbai. PlugShare is publicly sourced data, so some of the information might not be completely accurate.
These reviews are old. This isn’t the first instance of a dealership denying other OEM cars to charge.
A year ago, MG dealership in Agra wasn’t allowing Tata cars to charge.
If a charger is listed to be used publicly, the host should provide the service and not discriminate on basis of the brand.
In Goa, I couldn’t charge my MG at the Hyundai dealership because I did not speak in advance with the manager.
I am glad that the top management is now explicitly stating that all cars are welcome to charge at their charging points. This should make things better for everyone!
While looking at Mercedes, I also looked at the other German auto giant - BMW. There are charging points available at many BMW dealerships. They are hosted on an app called Recharge EV. I believe this is the right way to make the charging points truly accessible to every car.
I’ve been tracking Recharge EV’s growth since February 2022.
Recharge EV has CCS2 presence across 20 states and 13 cities, with majority of their network concentrated in the metro cities. The failure rate of CCS2 and Type2 infrastructure is🔒, which is🔒than the zonal failure rate of all CPOs.
Unlock these details by purchasing the ExpWithEVs Charging Infrastructure Deep Dive report for all major CPOs. Psst, today is the last day to buy the interactive report for a 25% discount!
As of 14 April 2024, RechargeEV has 55 CCS2, 18 CHAdeMO and 21 Type2 charging points. I wonder why they have invested in CHAdeMO charging points. Please comment and let me know if you know!
The most common configuration at the dealerships is either a 🔒 or a 🔒 singular CCS2 and a 43kW AC Type2 charging point. Some dealerships also have a 24kW CHAdeMO charging point.
Eighty of these 94 charging points are located at various BMW dealerships across the country.
You can buy a spreadsheet with the state, city, connectors, charger ratings (as shown on the app), host, host type and locations (latitude, longitude) for RechargeEV.
The sheet will be shared with you within 24 hours of payment. No tax applicable, invoice can be shared upon request.
If you’ve liked reading my blog, help me spread the word about the new report that I’ve just published - ExpWithEVs Charging Infrastructure Deep Dive report. This is a paid report that will be of use to enthusiasts as well as industry folks.
As you know I don’t accept sponsorships, but there’s a lot of work that goes into doing deep analysis. These reports are one way in which I can sustain this blog.
So share this link in your networks. I’ll appreciate it!