My Mercedes Electric shutting down May 31, 2019

EVaccess is no longer able to connect.

I have a theory about why we get crappy software in our cars and they never update it. I think the car manufacturers farm out the software work to a 3rd party, pay them off, and never deal with them again. So no updates. (Oh boy, did my old Fiat need some updates, It had some nonsense from Microsoft that was awful. It was called Blue&Me.)

Then when the new model comes out, that old 3rd party has moved on, and they have to hire some new outside bunch to start over.

The net effect on us customers is pretty dreadful. My last car had Apple Carplay and Android Auto, and I thought that was a pretty good solution if you don't want to write your own software.

But for the kind of functionality we want from our EV car apps (climate control, unlocking, etc.) it's time the auto manufacturers bit the bullet and hired a few programmers and kept them around to keep the software updated. Is that too much to ask??

So, the marketing materials for the B stated that the Connect service was included complimentary for five years. Since they shut it off after two years, that's very clear false advertising.

Any interest in a class action lawsuit?

Juanito,

Hey, see you are new member. Welcome. Are you a fellow B250e owner or thinking about getting one?

A couple of random thoughts.

a. Once one understands the basic math, i.e. charging rate and KwH till fully charged, it is pretty easy to estimate when your EV will be charged up. Don't need an app to do that.

b. On the other hand, to get notified if something interrupts the charging, useful to have the app. Particularly good in new charging locations where new parking attendants don't really know how to plug in properly. In those situations, my workaround is to go with them to be sure it is done correctly.

c. The B250e was a compliance car for them and each car sold was a loss for them. Not supporting their customers is a bad thing, no argument there. I doubt though they will mess around with EQC buyers as they need to electrify to meet EU regulations.

d. That all being said, car companies are not the best tech implementers. That is Tesla's advantage but also our disadvantage as they learn how to integrate leading edge software into the upcoming EV cars.

Hi JeffRay:
Thanks for the welcome. We own a 2017 B250e we just got Nov last year. It was used with only 20K miles and according to the non-Mercedes dealer, still under bumper to bumper warranty for another ~2 yrs, as well as a 100K mile battery warranty. At $17K USD it seemed like quite a steal. It was very easy (and amusing) making the dealer remove over $2K in maintenance fees on the invoice, since they could not justify them with the typical "Oil /fluid/filter changes" while pointing out the tires and brake pads were obviously not new. We did take it to the local MB dealer immediately after purchase and complained about the range jumping around a lot, but we are not sure what they did, if anything.

It is my wife's car, so I was hoping for a handy way to estimate when the car will be fully charged. I have no problem mentally calculating Kwh over time and how long it would take depending on the charger's capacity, yet that is not something she is inclined to do. I did find the tip about using the E-Cell display after plugging in to approximate the time it would be charged. That is handy, assuming it is fairly accurate. I'm just a bit confused why pressing the Range Extender button adds another 30 minutes to the time displayed, even when it is fully charged. I have not tested how accurate the time estimate is, but I'll do it soon. In researching this, I found something I may try soon: Iotawatt. It is a lot better than "Sense" or other highly publicized monitoring. Part of the motivation is that we also have solar panels and Tesla/Solarcity monitoring leaves a lot to be desired.

As our first EV, we did experience range anxiety for the first month or so, but it has slowly ebbed to a minimum now. The best thing I did to overcome it was installing a NEMA 14-50 right next to our breaker panel in the garage and buying a 40 Amp charger cable. The plug was a DIY project for under $100. It was surprisingly difficult to find the maximum charging rate this car is capable of doing. Once I found out it was 40 Amps or 9.6 Kw, then it became clear what I needed to install. I ended up getting a MustStart cable as the least expensive 40A L2 charger I could find. There is a lot of criticism online about this car not having fast DC charging capability, but on paper, 40 Amps will charge the 28Kw battery from 0% to 100% charge in just under 3 hrs. In our experience, the car usually starts with more than 60% charge and 100% charging usually takes less than 1 hr. That rivals DC charging rates, without potential damage to the battery.

At this point we are very happy with this car and the whole EV experience so far. On the long term, I'm looking for some way to be able to emergency roadside charge the car if it runs out of battery on the road sometime, using a portable AC generator (gasoline) of some sort, but considering that there are public chargers all over DFW, and we drive almost exclusively in the city, it is fairly unlikely. At this point I'm more concerned about getting a flat since it doesn't have any spare tire. I also need to look a bit more carefully at the warranties we supposedly have, since there do seem to be some things that fail on this car prematurely.

One observation I got from a fellow EV driver at work, was the incredible power consumption of windshield wipers. On our B250e, you can literally see the miles drop off with every swish. Maybe using some sort of Teflon or lubing liquid to reduce the blades' drag on the windshield will reduce its power draw substantially, as it's electric motor has to work a bit less. That is just an idea I have yet to try.

I may likely inherit this car for my commute, having her move into a larger car (which I hope is an EV). Hopefully EV SUVs will soon become commonplace and there are some good choices out there. We can't afford anything new from MB or any luxury car makers for that mater, so I have my fingers crossed.

Juanito et al.,

HAPPY EASTER.

Wow, you are a lucky fellow. Living in TX and being able to charge at home is the perfect combo. Temperate to hot is a lot better than cold to temperate for EVs. See posts for low temperature range drops. Plus per some website, TX is in the bottom quartile for cost of electricity. California in contrast is in the top quartile. More random thoughts follow:

1. Good deal, yeah, low maintenance running costs, save tires. With regen, less wear on brakes as well.

2. Yeah, check out the warranty. Did you have the MB dealer confirm that the annual battery check was done by previous owner? If not, do so as a missed annual battery check can void the battery warranty. Also, check the extended warranty to see if it covers motor and electrical charging as it is excluded on some policies.

3. GOM. The infamous guess o meter. Forget about it as it does bounce around depending on driving conditions. A lot of stop and go or wipers will drive the range down. The driving mode switch highlights what range difference to expect if you go to Sport mode. I myself look at remaining charge and throttle down when I am getting close to 25%. Then I bring it to a commercial charge location or leave it charging overnight at work on a pokey 120v outdoor outlet.

4. Flat tire. There are posts to peruse if you wish but the short story is I removed my OEM run flats and replaced with regular tires for a smoother ride but I know it cost me some range as the new tires are more sticky. I get a nail once a year but as you said, driving locally, it is not an issue when the car tells me that one of the tires is losing air. I just take it to the local shop and pay $20 to have the nail removed and patched. In 40 years of driving about 12K per year, I have had two highway blowouts. Both at speed, both cars had spares. If this happens to me, that is what I pay AAA for, to tow me to the nearest tire shop.

Enjoy the ride. You and your wife will enjoy this car.

Take care everyone.

I’m in Dallas Fort Worth area as well. I have had a couple instances where I thought I could make it and just didn’t quite lol Again this is why I pay for AAA as someone else had posted. My question is have you ever taken it out of town to say Houston or Austin or North maybe to OKC?