Mercedes sells its fast charging network to a French giant for nearly 100 million euros

Like many, Mercedes is looking for savings. To avoid cutting payroll too much, the German brand instead chooses to sell its European fast charging network. Cocorico is a French actor who wins the prize.

What do you mean, Mercedes-branded fast chargers? Before ingesting the information, the least we could do would be to go back to its origins... At the start of 2023, the brand with the star had in fact considered creating its own fast charging network in the hope of competing with Tesla's Superchargers. A good idea which would allow the German manufacturer to offer its own services to its customers to “premiumize” the electrical experience.

Ola Källenius, the CEO of Mercedes, himself announced at the time that his “customers deserve a compelling charging experience that allows them to own an electric vehicle and travel long distances effortlessly […]. We don’t want to wait any longer.” Of which note: the first terminals were installed immediately, with the ultimate objective of 10,000 charging points around the world by 2030.

Great promises which, however, will come to naught, because three years later, the European network has just been officially sold to the French operator Electra for 99 million euros. This thus takes over the 374 charging stations spread over 47 stations located on the continent. Such a transaction seemed obvious for Mercedes, whose accounts are now in the red. Cutting the workforce further was an easy step, but not really the best idea.

Given that manufacturer charging networks are having difficulty maintaining a certain financial balance, maintaining such a burden no longer made much sense. However, this does not mean that Mercedes customers will lose all the benefits initially associated with this network. Electra has indeed become a “Premium Partner” of the manufacturer, just after Ionity. Mercedes owners will thus benefit from one kilowatt hour at a preferential price.

This not only on the terminals newly acquired by Electra, but also and above all on the rest of the Electra network. This therefore leads to nearly 5,000 charging stations spread across 800 stations in Europe. And the operator does not intend to stop there. In an interview with Electrive, Paul Tonini, general manager of Electra's German branch, said that "we will continue our organic growth."

Before specifying that “we are also studying interesting charging networks available on the market”. The company could thus continue to develop in this way by multiplying partnerships. Nico Dettmer, head of charging solutions at Mercedes, also sees only advantages: “our goal is to offer our customers a smooth and exceptional experience, whatever the engine”.

Machine-translated from French