NSW apartment charging right, Mercedes home V2G, BMW batteries in China

Three electric-vehicle stories from October 12 to 15, 2026: New South Wales gave apartment owners a legal path to a charger, Mercedes-Benz opened home vehicle-to-grid charging in Germany with a launch offer that pays by the plugged-in hour, and BMW began building its newest battery packs in China.

NSW passes a right to charge for apartment owners

New South Wales apartment owners will get a right to install an EV charger on their own lot that their strata committee cannot unreasonably refuse, under the Strata Schemes Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2025, which passed NSW Parliament on October 15, 2026 and is awaiting assent. Under a new section 132D in the bill as passed, the owner gives the committee written notice, with any documents the regulations prescribe, and the committee has three months, or a longer period the regulations may prescribe for some circumstances, to answer with either a no-objection notice or a written objection with reasons. It "must not unreasonably object", silence counts as no objection, and the Tribunal can order a no-objection notice if it finds an objection unreasonable. The right covers installations that also need work on common property, and a by-law has no effect to the extent it would unreasonably prohibit a charger on a lot.

Subject to the regulations, the owner carries the bill: installation costs, plus an indemnity to the owners corporation for the reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the charger and making good any damage to common property. Which chargers count is left to regulation, since the bill defines a charging station as one "of a kind prescribed by the regulations", and the regulations may also spell out what makes an objection reasonable or unreasonable.

"Owners now also have the right to install electric vehicle charging on their own lot without fear of unreasonable objection from their strata committee," the Minister for Better Regulation and Fair Trading said on October 16. "Now" is generous. The charging amendment is not among the parts of the bill that start on assent, so it takes effect on a day still to be set by proclamation. The bill is the government's fourth tranche of strata changes for what the release counts as 1.2 million people in apartments and duplexes; an earlier tranche stopped by-laws from blocking solar panels and EV charging on grounds of external appearance.

Mercedes-Benz opens home V2G in Germany

Mercedes-Benz and The Mobility House Energy launched MB.CHARGE Home Pro Intelligent in Germany on October 12, 2026, a vehicle-to-grid package of an 11 kW bidirectional DC wallbox, an app and an electricity tariff that lets owners send power from the car's battery back to the grid and earn money for it, Mercedes announced. The electric GLC and the new C-Class come first; other models, including the VLE, GLA, EQS, CLA and GLB, are to follow, with the function switched on by over-the-air update on some of them. Owners also need a smart meter.

The launch offer is where the hourly pay lives. For the first 500 customers in Germany, under an offer that runs to the end of March 2027, every hour the car sits connected to the home wallbox earns a payment, whether it is charging, discharging or idle, with no daily, monthly or annual cap. Mercedes gives no hourly rate; it says a car plugged in for an average of 12 hours a day can currently expect a bonus of more than €500 a year, depending on how long it is connected. The same customers get the wallbox for €1,990 instead of €2,990 plus a €250 public-charging credit, and at that price Mercedes says the wallbox can pay for itself within four years. After the launch offer, payment follows whatever conditions then apply.

The wallbox is not a Mercedes-only box: it charges any electric car with 400- or 800-volt technology, takes over-the-air updates, and is built on open standards such as ISO 15118-20. Mercedes calls itself the first carmaker in the world to offer a market-ready bidirectional charging solution in Germany based on open, standardized technologies. The launch comes 11 days after Germany's grid regulator adopted rules that let bidirectional charge points store grid power alongside solar, under conditions.

BMW starts Gen6 battery production in Shenyang

BMW Group has begun series production of its sixth-generation (Gen6) high-voltage batteries in Shenyang, China, BMW said on October 15, 2026, making it the third Gen6 site after Debrecen in Hungary and Irlbach-Straßkirchen in Germany. The packs will supply future Neue Klasse models built in China. The announcement came two weeks after BMW opened Irlbach-Straßkirchen on October 1.

The technology claims are BMW's own: compared with the previous cell generation, the new cylindrical cells offer more than 20 percent higher energy density, and charging speed and range increase by up to 30 percent. The cells go directly into the battery housing with no module level, and a central control unit developed by BMW, the Energy Master, sits on the pack. Shenyang assembles packs from cells; the release does not say who makes the cells.

BMW builds the packs near the car plants, which it says shortens transport routes and makes supply more resilient. Two named assembly sites, Woodruff in the US and San Luis Potosí in Mexico, have yet to start series production.