MVV, the Mannheim-based public utility, is financing, building and operating 39 ultra-fast DC charging stations with 78 charging points across 27 locations of German retail group Müller nationwide. The rollout, confirmed in a July 10, 2026 announcement from technology partner ADS-TEC Energy, concentrates on the Stuttgart-Ulm corridor but extends to the Ruhr area, Munich and Freiburg. The stations use ADS-TEC’s battery-buffered ChargePost hardware, which delivers 250 to 300 kW per unit and allows two vehicles to charge simultaneously at up to 150 kW each, while drawing on an integrated battery of up to 201 kWh to avoid costly grid upgrades.
MVV’s Retail-Anchored Expansion Beyond Its Home Territory
MVV has built out public charging infrastructure in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region since 2017, and the utility now operates 250 charging stations with 480 charging points across 170 locations plus five dedicated charging parks. In 2025 alone, the network handled roughly 225,000 charging sessions, supporting about 29 million electric kilometres and an estimated 4,600 tonnes of avoided CO2 emissions, according to figures MVV published alongside the Müller announcement. The Müller partnership marks MVV’s first large-scale push of this charging model outside its traditional service territory.
Battery Buffering Solves A Familiar Grid Bottleneck
Retail parking lots, especially at drugstore-format stores like Müller’s, often sit on low-voltage grid connections that cannot support conventional high-power DC chargers without expensive substation work. ADS-TEC Energy’s ChargePost units address that by trickle-charging an onboard battery continuously and releasing stored energy in short, high-power bursts when a vehicle plugs in. The company says this battery-buffered approach has been deployed commercially since 2019 and now underpins more than 3,700 charging points worldwide, giving the Müller rollout a track record to draw on rather than an unproven pilot.
Regulatory Timing Under Germany’s Building Electromobility Law
The stations also address the Gebäude-Elektromobilitätsinfrastruktur-Gesetz, Germany’s Building Electromobility Infrastructure Act, which obliges certain commercial properties to install EV charging capacity. Ronny Opel, Müller’s Head of Insurance and Energy Management, has said the charging stations help the retailer meet those legal requirements while adding a service for shoppers, a framing consistent with how other German retailers have approached GEIG compliance. Rather than treating the mandate as a cost center, Müller and MVV are positioning the chargers as a dwell-time amenity tied to shopping trips.
Financing And Operating Roles Split Across Three Partners
MVV carries the capital cost and operational responsibility, covering financing, construction, technical operation and customer support for the full charging network. Müller’s contribution is limited to hosting the sites at its stores, while ADS-TEC Energy supplies the ChargePost and ChargeBox hardware and, notably, will also manage marketing of the digital-out-of-home advertising space built into the units for the first time under this deal. Each ChargePost carries two 75-inch digital displays that Müller can use for targeted advertising, adding a revenue and marketing layer that is less common in standard public charging deployments.
A Model MVV Says It Will Scale Further
“Electric mobility needs to be simple, fast and convenient. That’s why, together with our partners, we are expanding charging infrastructure where people already spend their time: at retail destinations,” said Vinzent Grimmel, Head of Smart Cities at MVV, in the company’s July 2026 press release. MVV describes the Müller project as a template it intends to replicate with other partners as it scales beyond the Rhine-Neckar region. The utility is deploying one or two stations at most sites, rising to three at higher-traffic locations, with several already live and the remainder coming online over the following months.
Where This Fits In Germany’s Broader Charging Buildout
Germany remains one of Europe’s largest EV charging markets alongside the Netherlands, which held the continent’s largest national public charging network at roughly 210,000 points as of January 2026. Retail-anchored, battery-buffered deployments like the MVV-Müller project reflect a broader industry shift toward siting fast chargers at existing high-traffic commercial locations rather than building standalone highway or urban hubs, a strategy other utilities and charge point operators have also pursued as grid capacity constraints and GEIG-style mandates spread across the EU.
