Do you charge at home?
Do you use a type 2 wallbox or the MB type 2 cable and a 240v nema 14-50 outlet?
Do you regularly charge at public level 2 or level 3 chargers?
If given the choice, would you buy your EV again?

I'm planning to order a MB EQE next year when the body style changes from its jelly bean shape to a regular E class body.
If I can use an existing50 amp dryer outlet I won't have to obtain unit owner & condo permissions, city permits and an electrician
to add an additional power feed and panel dedicated to EV charging ($$$).

 

Hi ua549,
I have an EQE SUV, but my answers should still be relevant for you.

Do you charge at home? Yes. 90% of my charging occurs at home. I am in a condo and the condo association decided to install wall boxes in all of our parking spots at once with a load-balancing system to share power equally to the cars but still leave enough power for the condo units. The balancing system also makes sure our power draw, in total, does not hit the limit of our power entrance. As such, we did not need to upgrade the power entrance and power contract with the electric company. It's saved us and our association a lot of money.
Do you use a type 2 wallbox or the MB type 2 cable and a 240v nema 14-50 outlet? I am in Sweden. 11kw/h non-MB Type2 (European) wallbox. I understand from reading posts on this forum over the last couple of years that you likely cannot expect anything over 9.6 kw/h in the States from a wallbox at home.
Do you regularly charge at public level 2 or level 3 chargers? My car has the option to charge at 22 kw/h AC chargers, but I never use it. Typically when I see these chargers, there are 100/150/200/350 kw/h DC chargers at the same location and I use these to save time because I'm on a road trip.
If given the choice, would you buy your EV again? Absolutely, positively YES! Though next time, it could be a GLC (EQ) for me.

There's a lot of charging discussion on this forum. Search around. Read around. I've seen quite a number of posts indicating that using a 240v dryer outlet may work, but it can be a huge fire risk. The outlet (and perhaps the wiring??) for a dryer installation are not designed or dimensioned for such a high, long and constant power draw. Based on what I've read, I would absolutely not try this.

 

@ua549 It's good to start your research well in advance of a possible purchase.
- charging is in my underground condo parking space using a commercially installed connection arranged by the condo. It provides a max of 6.4kw/h which is quite adequate for overnight charging.
- it is a Type 2 wallbox managed by SWTCH that provides a keycard to authorize charging
- the majority of my charging is at home. Out of town trips are usually booked for hotels that provide free Level 2 charging. I very infrequently use a public charger and it would be at a DC fast charger.
- EV's are rapidly evolving, so buying the same one again may not even be possible, but I would not buy an ICE again. The convenience of charging at home and reduced maintenance is such a pleasure.

 

I own a 2024 AMG SUV purchased in Dec 2023.

1. I've used a DC charger 1 or 2 times when I was experimenting on the charging infrastructure. So about 99.9% of my charging is at home.
2. My charging unit is a Wallbox Pulsar Plus, which is hardwired into the main panel in the garage. I believe that the unit is also configurable to use a 50-amp outlet. However, I would upgrade your dryer outlet to an industrial version to avoid meltdown and fire..
3. I believe that the EQE SUV is at the end of its life. The replacement appears to be the 2027 GLC SUV with EQ, which has nearly identical interior and exterior dimensions.
4. I definitely don't miss going to a gas station, the cost of premium gasoline, and the yearly maintenance items of oil changes, etc. My energy costs are at $0.11 / KWH from Duke Energy here in NC. During the 23 months of ownership, I have saved over $ 2,000 by not using gasoline. I would definitely buy another EV again, and I'm planning to do so at the end of next year.
2027 GLC SUV with EQ Technology | Mercedes-Benz USA

 

I decided to buy either a GLC SUV with EQ Technology or EQE 320 4MATIC Sedan whichever can be custom ordered first. The Mercedes Mobile Flex Charging Cable that comes with the car allows for level 2 charging without a wallbox (big savings). It can plug directly into a Nema 14-50 socket. I scheduled my local electrician to estimate the cost of upgrading my 30 amp dryer circuit to a 50 amp circuit with a Nema 14-50 socket. Hopefully my existing power panel has the capacity so I won't need a subpanel. I hope to have the work done in January.

The bottom line is that using public chargers costs a magnitude more than home charging. Duke Energy Florida has Super Off Peak rates of 4.806¢ per KWh in addition to other incentives.

 

BTW, Duke Energy has a subsidy for the installation of an EV charger up to $1300.

 

Yes I charge at home. For the first two years while we had the free charging from MB at Electrify America. I only used the existing 120V outlets to verify the Mercedes supplied portable EVSE worked. At 120V the portable EVSE was fine but slow. Since we are work from home, we could easily fully charge the car with just the 120V outlet, though on some weekends we did enough driving that a DCFC would be needed Saturday night. In reality, charging at home would cost money and EA was free, so we mostly charged at EA's DCFC. As we approached the end of the free charging period, I installed a NEMA 14-50 outlet on a 50A breaker so we could do level 2 charging at home for about half the cost of EA's rates. I have discovered the MB supplied EVSE, a Webasto Go unit, overheats frequently so does not maintain the design 7.6kW nominal rate. I will likely replace this with 9.6kW EVSE in the future, but in reality even the 7.6kW charger with some 3.2kW periods is more than enough to recharge overnight (12:00 to 8:00 to take advantage of cheap rates) after a day's driving 95% of the time.

Going forward we will mostly charge at home but will use public chargers on the longer trips (i.e., greater than 200 miles). We also rent EVs when we travel, those we charge at public chargers.

As for would I buy an EV again? Yes, definitely. I wish I had gotten it much sooner than I did. Electric drive is far superior to internal combustion engines. It really is no comparison. Not having to change oil and filters every six months, not having to go to smelly gas stations, etc., it is just a better experience all the way around.

Edit: I should add that I switched my electricity plan to an EV plan that gives heavily discounted rates from midnight to 3:00 PM each day, and set the car to charge during those low rate periods.

 

Charge at home with Level 2 charger plugged into 14-50 outlet.

On road trips I have picked hotels with Level 2 chargers, but other than that I rarely use a public level 2 charger. On longer day trips I have charged at Level 3 public chargers.

I've owned only EVs (Tesla, BMW, MB) for ten years and won't ever return to ICE.

 

I browsed through all 1009 pages of the EQE sedan operator manual posted on the MBUSA site. What a bunch of gobbledygook. It must have been written by the lawyers. For anyone with insomnia the EQE-Sedan-Manual.pdf is the perfect sleep aid. I removed the copy and print restrictions.

 

Totally agree. It is so lawyered up to protect them from liability that it's almost impossible to find any real content. The manual is effectively useless.

 

While I will not claim to be a professional, a big part of the problem with the manual is the typography, which makes it difficult to separate the warnings from the informative text. Frankly, it is a case study in how not to design a manual. In earlier manuals, the warnings were written in a more distinctive font and styling that separated them from the instructional and reference material which is the core of the manual. With these manuals, it all appears the same and there are so many redundant warnings that the material an owner wants and needs to see is lost. Frankly, it is bad enough that the manuals could arguably be a liability source if something happens because an owner did not understand the manual.

 

the worst part is that some functions are explained with only one sentence, where other things are explained in detail including all the warnings ("be careful, driving might result in deadly accidents...")

How did you manage to remove the restrictions? - my paid version of adobe won't let me do it for some reason ...

 

I used an online tool where I uploaded the pdf, cleared the restrictions and downloaded the clean pdf - 3 clicks.

 

i have tried that one, but it didn't work. will give it another go

 

Remove restrictions in PDF files online & free is another one I've successfully used.

 

I know that many have answered already, but I figured I'd add in case it helps in any way.

Do you charge at home?

Most of my charging is at home. While fast charging is great, and on our road trips fast charging has been a great experience so far, nothing beats having your car ready to go every single day. No planned trips to fuel or charge, it's just ready every day, and unless I have a road trip in the plans, the 70 or 80% charge I've set it to will work for all my daily commute and errand activities.

Do you use a type 2 wallbox or the MB type 2 cable and a 240v nema 14-50 outlet?

We have a hard-wired MB (EVBox) charger and another MB (EVbox) charger that is attached to a 14-50 outlet.

Do you regularly charge at public level 2 or level 3 chargers?

If it's convenient and the stations aren't busy, I'll occasionally charge at a level 3 if I'm shopping next to the chargers and know I won't incur idle fees. I always L2 charge at my destination if it's available, because why not? ABC. Always Be Charging. And on road trips, of course, I will use L3 charging.

If given the choice, would you buy your EV again?

3000% yes. I love our EQEs. We've had combustion MB vehicles in our family since the 1980s. I currently have two combustion MBs, one a classic (W124) and one W212 that's a project car (a car I have bought back after many years), in addition to our EQE sedan and SUV. But the EQ series is simply spectacular. I've never been so happy to drive a car every day than these. Yes, there are some quirks, and some cost cutting maneuvers that are obvious, but the EQE package is simply fantastic. I know there are faster-charging cars. I know that there are longer-range cars. I know there are more modern drivetrains available. But I feel that the EQE is a very under-celebrated, truly excellent car, and in every way a Mercedes-Benz. What else is there to say? If I had to do it over, I'd buy it again in a heartbeat. In fact, I'd have bought it even sooner if it had been possible, though I did take delivery of my sedan in May 2023, which was pretty early in its availability cycle in the US.

Hope that helps!

 

I charge at home. I initially had a 14/50 plug L2 charger. I decided to have an electrician install a hardwired MB L2 charger (was free as a promotion from MB) and am quite happy charging after hours and waking up ready to go. I don't use L3 chargers, though I have the Tesla adapter in the trunk if I go on a trip where this is needed. I did take a small road trip and the hotel valet charged my car (L2) overnight and I had a full charge for the way home, a nice touch.

Would I buy another EQE? Yes, and I did just that. I initially leased a 2023 EQE 350+. I used the MB lease pull ahead and moved to a 2024 EQE 500 and could not be happier. The car is loaded (101k MSRP) and has loads of power, more than I need really. But they priced these things to move so I took advantage.