Currently, Mercedes’ EVs (just like the EQS SUV and EQE Sedan) help 400V, not 800V. Indeed, at CES in earlier years, executives on the automaker have insisted that the absence of that higher-power structure hasn’t been a downside for its electrical fashions. This yr, although — and with the primary MMA-based automobiles quick approaching — Schäfer is speaking a barely completely different story.

“The shift to 800V cars and, associated with that, chargers that offer 300, 350, or even 500 kW, this will happen immediately,” Schäfer predicts. “Tesla is moving there: In the Cybertruck they’re moving in the world of 800V. Hyundai is moving there … If you look in the world, things are clearly moving there.”

With very quick DC charging help on each the automobile facet and the infrastructure facet, it may also observe that issues about EV vary would even be squashed. That’s actually the technique many within the trade hope will pan out, on condition that the battery pack is the only most costly component of an electrical automobile. Unfortunately, Schäfer is not satisfied, at the very least not for the second.