Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation announced the list of unconditional approval of concentration of undertakings, including the approval of Mercedes-Benz (China) Investment*** and BMW Brilliance Automotive *** to set up a new joint venture, and the trial will be concluded on January 23.
On November 30, 2023, BMW and Mercedes-Benz jointly announced the signing of a cooperation agreement to establish a 50:50 joint venture in China to operate a supercharging network in the Chinese market. From 2024 to the end of 2026, the company plans to build at least 1,000 state-of-the-art supercharging stations and about 7,000 charging piles in China.
In-depth analysis
With the rapid development of new energy vehicles in China, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in 2023 will be 94950,000 units, and 11.5 million units are expected in 2024. At the same time, with the application of 800V technology and supercharging technology, the charging pile market has ushered in an explosive period. Domestic car companies such as Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal, Huawei, Zeekr, etc. have opened their own charging pile networks, and BMW and Mercedes-Benz have also seen the prospects of the charging network market and entered the game.
In addition, most car companies are open to the operation of the charging network, and give charging rights to their own car owners, which is also an important factor in the brand premium, and the opening up can also grasp the right to speak for energy supplementation.
Although the charging agreement has been unified with the national standard, the openness and interconnection of different brands of charging piles are the key points that need to be considered in the future. After all, the idleness of charging piles after radical network construction is also a waste of social resources.