Announced at CES 2023, in Las Vegas, the German luxury automaker revealed it will start building its own electric vehicle charging network this year.
The project will allow Mercedes to compete with Tesla, at an initial projected cost of around $1.05bn (£880bn).
Mercedes said it expects to have a network with 400 charging stations and more than 2,500 high-power plugs across the US and Canada completed within six or seven years.
Eventually, the full network is expected to consist of 10,000 chargers and will be available to EV owners in North America, Europe and China, the world’s three largest markets for battery-electric vehicles.
“To accelerate the electric transformation, we need to ensure that the charging experience keeps pace as well,” said Mercedes chairman Ola Källenius. “We won’t take a wait-and-see approach for [a public network] to be built. That’s why we are launching a global high-end charging network.”
Currently, around 80 per cent of EV...