Mercedes-Benz will have production lines exclusively for electric cars in the coming years

Mercedes-Benz has decided not to build separate factories for the production of electric vehicles for now. Instead, the company will create lines at already operating enterprises that produce only battery-powered machines.

Mercedes-Benz expects some of its production lines at factories to switch to exclusively electric cars in the next few years. This is said to allow the company to retain the flexibility needed to follow market changes. At the same time, Mercedes-Benz may have full-fledged enterprises for the production of battery-powered cars only after 2025.

“Building a completely new battery electric vehicle plant takes time. We took a different approach. In the next few years, we will definitely have lines producing only electric vehicles… We are also seeing entire factories switching to electric vehicles – this is the theme of the second half of the decade,” Mercedes-Benz production manager Joerg Burser told Reuters in an interview Burzer).

The next milestone in Mercedes-Benz’s development as an electric vehicle manufacturer will be the launch of the EQE sedan, presented in September 2021 at the IAA Mobility 2021 in Munich. It will become a battery-powered analogue of the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and in the electric car segment will compete with such models as the Audi e-tron GT, BMW i4, Tesla Model S and Porsche Taycan. This year, production of the EQE will start in Bremen (Germany), after which it will also begin to be assembled in China and the USA.

Last year, the share of electric vehicles in total Mercedes-Benz sales was only 2.3%. At the same time, plug-in hybrids, which have an internal combustion engine, electric motors and a battery that can be charged from the mains, accounted for 11% of sales. It is expected that by 2025 the share of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will be at least 50% of sales.

All existing electrified models are produced in factories that also produce cars with internal combustion engines. Traction batteries for them are delivered by rail from the main plant in Sindelfingen, Germany, to plants in Germany and Hungary.

In the future, battery assembly and production could be closer to auto assembly plants, Berzer said. This will happen as vehicle designs improve to integrate battery packs more compactly.