Mercedes Benz wants to cooperate with the American electric car manufacturer Rivian in the production of electric vans. Both companies have signed a corresponding declaration of intent for a strategic partnership, Mercedes-Benz announced on Thursday. They want to set up a joint venture for production, invest in a joint factory in Europe and then operate it together.
Vans from both companies are to be produced there “in just a few years”. An existing Mercedes-Benz location in Central/Eastern Europe is to be used for the factory, which is intended exclusively for purely electric vans. This would offer “significant cost benefits,” said Mathias Geisen (43), Head of Mercedes-Benz Vans. When asked, Geisen did not comment in detail on the planned time frame, the exact location and the amount of the investments.
Mercedes is currently the only German manufacturer to manufacture all vans in its home country, while the competition benefits from cheaper locations in Eastern Europe, explained Geisen. “We also want to continue in Germany manufacture, but that is only economically viable in combination with a location with lower costs,” emphasized Geisen.
Mercedes-Benz Vans intends to retain the two existing German plants in Düsseldorf and Ludwigsfelde. Due to the slower conversion to e-cars for vans and transporters, they will still be well utilized in the next ten years. Combustion models would probably still be in demand among commercial customers who are keen to calculate beyond 2030, and the Sprinter will be built for a correspondingly long time. Staff reductions are not planned. “We’re not talking about relocating production capacity,” said Geisen.
Rivian with problems in the US
At the Düsseldorf plant, additional investments of 400 million euros are planned for vehicles on the future electric platform VAN.EA. New tasks would have to be found for Ludwigsfelde, because no e-vehicles are planned there after the end of production of the e-Sprinter, which has not yet been determined. Works council head Ergun Lümali said that the employee representatives wanted to secure prospects for the employees in the upcoming negotiations.
Cooperation partner Rivian, on which Amazon is involved, had recently started ramping up production due to disrupted supply chains and rising material costs United States to fight. In the USA, in addition to the first plant in Normal/Illinois, a second factory is planned for 2025, because the major shareholder Amazon alone has ordered 100,000 delivery vans from Rivian. By the next decade, sales of the newcomer, which is still making losses, should grow to over a million electric vehicles a year, said Rivian boss Robert “RJ” Scaringe (39) recently in a Reuters interview. Rivian has not yet produced in Europe.
Rivian’s shares rose 8.6 percent on Wall Street following the announcement of its proposed collaboration with Mercedes-Benz. The cooperation reduces Rivian’s capital requirements and also accelerates the US electric vehicle manufacturer’s entry into the attractive European end market, wrote the analyst Joseph Spak from the Canadian bank RBC in a study available on Thursday. It will also make it easier to ramp up production.