Mercedes-Benz has put a price on an idle car. On 12 October 2026 it launched MB.CHARGE Home Pro Intelligent in Germany, its first bidirectional home-charging package, and the payment is simple: 11.75 cents for every hour the car is connected to the wallbox, whether it is charging, feeding the grid or doing nothing.
The package pairs an 11 kW DC wallbox from The Mobility House with a fixed-price electricity contract from the same company's supply arm. Mercedes' own example assumes an average of twelve hours a day on the cable, which comes to about EUR 500 a year.
What Mercedes is paying
| Term | Detail |
|---|---|
| Bonus | 11.75 cents per hour connected, with no daily, monthly or yearly cap |
| Mercedes' example | about EUR 500 a year at an average of 12 hours a day |
| What that buys | up to 1,717 kWh a year at the 30 cents per kWh Mercedes assumes |
| Tariff | Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Pro Eco, supplied by The Mobility House Energy |
| Wallbox | ChargeLine Bidi, 11 kW DC, 400 V and 800 V, ISO 15118-20 |
| Wallbox price | EUR 1,990 for the first 500 customers who sign by 31 March 2027, EUR 2,990 after |
| Extra | EUR 250 of MB.CHARGE public charging credit for those first customers |
| Cars | electric GLC and the new C-Class now; CLA, CLA Shooting Brake, GLA, GLB, EQS and VLE later, activated over the air |
| Requirement | a smart meter installed by the metering operator |
Twelve hours a day is 4,380 hours a year, or EUR 515. The payback on the launch-price wallbox is about four years, the figure Mercedes gives, and nearer six at EUR 2,990.
Paid by the hour, not all or nothing
The structure is the real difference from Audi's vehicle-to-grid tariff with Octopus Energy, which pays EUR 30 a month only if the car is connected for at least 300 hours in that month, and nothing if it is not. Mercedes pays per hour. Ten hours a day instead of twelve still earns about EUR 430 a year, and a fortnight away costs roughly EUR 20 rather than a month's bonus.
The condition is that intelligent charging stays switched on: Mercedes and The Mobility House decide when the car charges and discharges, and the owner is paid for hours, not for kilowatt-hours exported.
Who can sign
Two groups can use the offer from the start: households without a solar system, and households whose solar power goes entirely into the grid. Homes that consume their own solar electricity are excluded for now; Mercedes says a solution for them is in development. That lines up with the final version of Germany's bidirectional charging rulebook, in force since 1 October, which opened a single-meter route for households without solar.
Germany comes first and "selected markets" are to follow; Mercedes' charging pages say its first bidirectional services are due in Germany, France and the UK in the course of 2026.
Where this leaves a Tesla owner in Germany
No Model 3 or Model Y sold in Europe can export electricity to the grid. Tesla's bidirectional work is happening elsewhere: Powershare Home Backup reached new Model 3 and Model Y cars on 6 October, in the United States only, and the 2027 Model 3 gains 2.2 kW of vehicle-to-load in China, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, not in Europe. The Wall Connector's new Smart Charging decides when a Tesla charges, never whether it gives anything back.
The electric GLC and the new C-Class are the two cars a German buyer most often weighs against a Model Y and a Model 3, and one side of that comparison now comes with a payment attached. Tesla did not sign the industry letter that reshaped the rulebook, and the draft EEG 2027 would still cap household grid connections in a way that could narrow the market Mercedes has just entered.