Mercedes actually wanted to build a plant in Eastern Europe together with the US carmaker Rivian. Now the carmaker is going it alone in Poland. The fact that the corporations no longer cooperate comes as a surprise. Just a few months ago things looked different.
Mercedes-Benz wants to expand e-car production. The plan: build an e-van factory in the Polish city of Jawor. It is a prestige project because the group has so far manufactured vans with combustion and electric drives in all existing plants. “In Jawor we will set up our world’s first purely electric plant,” says the head of Mercedes-Benz Vans, Mathias Geisen.
Mercedes wants to invest around one billion euros in the e-transporter plant. Incidentally, this is not the first production site in the small Polish town. Mercedes-Benz Cars has been producing combustion engines in the small town since 2019 and batteries since 2020. According to the group, whether the new plant will be built at the site still depends, among other things, on the granting of state aid.
Surprisingly, the US electrical manufacturer Rivian is not included. With regard to the cost pressure in the transporter industry, even rivals such as Ford and Volkswagen joined forces to jointly manufacture transporters in Turkey. Rivian and Mercedes also planned a strategic cooperation. In September, both signed a letter of intent to build a joint plant in Eastern Europe. Large electric vans of both brands were to be manufactured there within a few years. Rivian put that back to devote to his own projects. However, Mercedes-Benz Vans announced that a cooperation with Rivian remains a possibility.
The suspension of this partnership reflects the process of evaluating the major capital projects in light of current and anticipated economic conditions, Rivian CFO Claire McDonough said in a statement. The startup believes its current business of selling vans and SUVs to retail customers and its delivery truck deal with Amazon are ideal for increasing profitability in the near future.
Rivian is losing heavily and trying to increase production at its only plant in Normal, Illinois. According to previous plans, construction of a second factory in Georgia is to begin. In the first three quarters of this year alone, the company, in which Amazon has a stake, posted a net loss of five billion dollars.
