Mercedes-Benz will build its next-generation electric Sprinter van at its plant near North Charleston, the company announced Tuesday, making the South Carolina factory one of three in the world to produce the battery-powered van.
The new eSprinter will be built in North Charleston and at plants in Düsseldorf and Ludwigsfelde, Germany, with production starting in stages in the second half of 2023, Mercedes-Benz said. The company is investing about 350 million euros in the next-generation van, including about 50 million euros at each of the three plants.
“Our North Charleston plant will be the first to bring the next generation of the eSprinter to the United States,” said Arnhelm Mittelbach, president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Vans, LLC, which runs the plant. “We are proud that we have earned the trust of the company to produce this vehicle as an important pillar of the Mercedes-Benz Vans production network.”
The plant will build the electric van for the U.S. and Canadian markets and will continue to build conventional Sprinters, The Post and Courier reported.
A new platform
The van will be built on the company’s newly developed Electric Versatility Platform, which Mercedes-Benz announced at the end of 2020. The next generation targets new customer segments and markets, including the United States and Canada, according to the company.
“The future of mobility is electric in the transport sector, especially in the last mile delivery segment,” said Marcus Breitschwerdt, head of Mercedes-Benz Vans. “Our share of battery-electric vehicles is constantly growing.”
The current eSprinter is built in Düsseldorf on the same line as conventional Sprinters, the company said. It is sold in several European markets but not in the United States, TFLtruck reported. The plants in Charleston and Ludwigsfelde will also build electric and conventional vans on one line, which will let the company respond precisely to market needs, Mercedes-Benz said.
The next generation will be offered as a chassis model as well as a panel van, giving builders a base for ambulances, motorhomes and refrigerated trucks, according to the company.
“We will start production of the eSprinter successively from the second half of 2023,” said Ingo Ettischer, head of production at Mercedes-Benz Vans. He said the company would invest about 50 million euros in each plant to adjust production. Plant conversion and retraining are being prepared, the company said.
Demand for electric delivery vans
Demand for battery-powered delivery vehicles is rising among online retailers and other businesses, The Post and Courier reported. Amazon, the plant’s biggest customer, has ordered 20,000 Sprinters from the North Charleston plant and last year announced the purchase of 100,000 electric vehicles to deliver goods to customers’ homes, the newspaper reported.
The Sprinter sold a record 41,930 vehicles in the United States in 2020, a 31.6% increase over the previous year, according to the newspaper.
Ford’s E-Transit electric van, scheduled for mid-2021, will reach the market before the new eSprinter, TFLtruck reported. Mercedes-Benz did not release technical details for the new van.
Carbon-neutral plants
Mercedes-Benz said its own car and van plants worldwide will produce carbon-neutral beginning in 2022, in line with the company’s Ambition 2039 climate targets. Starting that year, Mercedes-Benz Vans will use only electricity from renewable sources in all its own plants, Ettischer said.
The Ladson plant
The plant in Ladson, which the company calls North Charleston, was founded 15 years ago as an assembly plant for Sprinter and Metris vans and was expanded to build Sprinters part by part in 2018, the company said. It had about 1,600 employees at the end of 2020.
That expansion, which cost about $500 million, added a body shop and paint shop to what had been a kit assembly operation. Since 2006, workers there had reassembled Sprinters that were built in Germany and shipped to the Port of Charleston in kits.
Mittelbach thanked state and county officials in the announcement. “We are also grateful for the continued support from the state of South Carolina and Charleston County in the development of our facility and our team who have worked hard to reach this milestone in our growth,” he said.
“The next generation eSprinter will support a sustainable future for the company and the environment, and we look forward to this investment in our Charleston team and facility,” Mittelbach said.
