DaimlerChrysler officially started building Sprinter vans for the U.S. market Tuesday at its plant in Ladson, where workers will reassemble vans that are built in Germany and shipped across the Atlantic in kits.
Gov. Mark Sanford attended the inauguration of the plant, which will turn out Sprinters under the Dodge and Freightliner brands, Automotive Fleet reported. The company invested $35 million in the 460,000-square-foot plant, which employs 180 workers and can build 32,000 vans a year, according to WardsAuto.
The plant replaces a Sprinter operation in Gaffney, which had capacity for about 22,000 vans a year and could no longer keep up with growing sales, Automotive Fleet reported.
The Ladson plant is expected to assemble 22,000 large vans this year and has the capacity to process up to 34,000 a year, according to Wilfried Porth, the DaimlerChrysler executive vice president responsible for the company’s worldwide van operations, FleetOwner reported.
Why the vans arrive in pieces
The Sprinter is built at a DaimlerChrysler plant in Germany. Cargo versions are taken apart there and shipped to Ladson as kits, where workers put engines, transmissions, axles and other powertrain parts back into the original bodies, FleetOwner reported. Doing that work in the United States lets the company avoid a 25% U.S. duty on imported commercial cargo vans.
Passenger versions face only a 2.5% import duty, so they arrive as complete vehicles and are prepared for delivery at the Ladson plant, the publication reported. The plant is the final assembly point for the cargo van and the final prep point for passenger and chassis-cab models, Work Truck Online reported.
The kits already come into the Port of Charleston from Europe, one of the Ladson site’s main advantages, Site Selection magazine reported when the plant was announced.
A new van for the U.S. market
The plant opens with a redesigned Sprinter, which goes on sale this spring through close to 50 Freightliner dealers and 400 Dodge dealers, according to Work Truck Online. DaimlerChrysler also sells the van directly to large package delivery and leasing fleets, FleetOwner reported.
The new Sprinter comes in three lengths, three roof heights and two new wheelbases, as a cargo van, passenger van or chassis cab. Buyers can choose a 3.0-liter V-6 diesel or a 3.5-liter V-6 gasoline engine, and DaimlerChrysler expects about 10% of sales to be gas models, Work Truck Online reported. A stability control system that accounts for the van’s payload is standard.
The Sprinter accounts for 4.9% of all Class 2 and 3 vans sold in the United States, Porth said, according to FleetOwner.
The company also plans to build and test up to 20 plug-in hybrid versions of the Dodge Sprinter, with no timetable for selling one. “Much more testing is needed before bringing the hybrid version to market,” Porth told Business Fleet magazine at the event, Work Truck Online reported.
Porth declined to speculate on reports that DaimlerChrysler is trying to sell its Chrysler operations. He said that “whatever the outcome, we see no need for change” in the Sprinter business, FleetOwner reported. The Ladson plant is run by a separate DaimlerChrysler company that supplies vans to both Dodge and Freightliner dealers, he said.
DaimlerChrysler also sells a smaller van in Europe, but Porth said the current version “is not designed for American [safety and market] requirements.” The company will look at a U.S. version when it designs the next generation, he told FleetOwner.
A second life for a fire-truck plant
The Ladson building was the headquarters and main assembly plant of fire-truck maker American LaFrance, a unit of DaimlerChrysler’s Freightliner truck business, FleetOwner reported when the move was announced. DaimlerChrysler has since sold American LaFrance but kept the Ladson plant, according to FleetOwner and Site Selection. The company announced just after Thanksgiving 2005 that it would move Sprinter assembly there.
“A comprehensive logistics study, conducted by DaimlerChrysler’s Commercial Vehicles Division, found Ladson to have a clear strategic manufacturing advantage,” the company said in that announcement, according to Site Selection.
At the time, the company said 220 employees would initially work in production, FleetOwner reported. About 70 workers in Gaffney who had been assembling Sprinter kits were to be moved to other jobs within Freightliner, Site Selection reported. Rolf Bartke, head of the Mercedes-Benz Vans business unit at the time of the announcement, said the Ladson plant would raise annual output to 32,000 vans, roughly 10,000 more than Gaffney could handle.
Ladson won out over a site in Pooler, Ga., that had been prepared for a DaimlerChrysler plant, Site Selection reported. Georgia had won an earlier competition for a larger plant, but the company chose a scaled-down facility in Ladson instead, just-auto reported. The Chatham County land remains empty, Savannah television station WTOC reported Wednesday.
South Carolina’s initial incentives were about $500,000 in infrastructure grants plus job-creation and tax credits, according to Site Selection. The grants could rise to $15 million if the company’s investment reaches its target level, which depends on van sales.
Room to grow
When it announced the move, DaimlerChrysler said it planned to expand the plant with a body shop and paint shop if the North American market warranted it, Site Selection reported.
For now, the job in Ladson is reassembly. The investment there is about three times what the company spent when it launched the Gaffney operation in 2001, the magazine reported.
