Mercedes-Benz car plants worldwide are restarting production this month after a production suspension period caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement, Mercedes-Benz says its car plants have “successfully restarted production step by step”.
On April 20th, the engine and component plants in Germany gradually resumed production first, followed by the Mercedes-Benz car assembly plants.
The international Mercedes-Benz production sites have also incrementally resumed production in parallel.
“The health and safety of everyone involved is of the highest priority,” says Mercedes-Benz. The production ramp-up is designed to be flexible in order to be able to react to current developments and country-specific regulations.
In resuming production in a coordinated manner, Mercedes-Benz is continuing its product and electric offensive and thereby also serving its largest sales market in China, where the company is seeing a significant increase in demand again.
Jörg Burzer, member of the board of management of Mercedes-Benz, production and supply chain management: “Together with the whole team, I am glad that we are gradually restarting our production in a coordinated manner.
“Flexibility is what counts here: our plants’ flexibility is one of our strategic focuses in production and that has helped us in this ramp-up.
“Our first priority is to further contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and to provide a safe working environment for our employees, suppliers and service providers.
“We are producing in compliance with extensive safety measures and we will be increasing our production step by step.”
Mercedes-Benz powertrain plants in Germany
The Mercedes-Benz Untertürkheim plant restarted production on April 20 after a suspension period.
The Stuttgart plant produces engines and components that are required for production at Mercedes-Benz assembly plants worldwide – the same applies to the Kölleda and Arnstadt plants (MDC Power and MDC Technology).
Similarly, the Mercedes-Benz Berlin plant has resumed its production, for example of Camtronic engine management units.
The same applies to the Mercedes-Benz Hamburg plant that produces axles and axle components for Mercedes-Benz vehicle production around the world.
As part of Mercedes-Benz’s electric offensive, the Kamenz battery plants of Mercedes-Benz subsidiary Accumotive – which produce batteries for the EQ range, as well as drive batteries for plug-in hybrid vehicles and 48V batteries – continued their operations during the production suspension, working on strategic ramp-up projects on a 2-shift basis with strictly staggered shifts and extensive safety measures for the employees.
Mercedes-Benz car assembly plants Germany
The gradual restart of the Mercedes-Benz car assembly plants began on April 27.
At the Mercedes-Benz Bremen plant, production capacities are gradually being increased for the entire product range, which includes the bestselling SUV, the Mercedes-Benz GLC.
At the same time, production of the EQC is being gradually ramped up on the same line as part of the electric offensive.
The Mercedes-Benz Sindelfingen plant production includes the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and the S-Class Saloon, the world’s bestselling luxury saloon in 2019, for which China was the largest market last year.
The E-Class and S-Class electrified models, hybrid and plug-in hybrid variants, are also produced at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Sindelfingen.
This year Mercedes-Benz will start producing the new S-Class in the new “Factory 56” in Sindelfingen, which will open in September 2020.
The Mercedes-Benz Rastatt plant is the lead plant for the worldwide production of the high-volume Mercedes-Benz compact cars: in 2019, one in four Mercedes-Benz vehicles sold worldwide was a compact car.
The A-Class Sedan, A-Class and B-Class as well as the compact SUV GLA are manufactured in Rastatt. Since this year, the plug-in hybrid variants of the A- and B-Class are also being produced here.
