Mercedes large plant in Detroit

For years, Mercedes Benz has owned the large Detroit Diesel plant on the very far west side of Detroit. They produced diesel engines in great quantity for the Freightliner trucks that
Mercedes assembled in both the U S and Canada.

Last week, Mercedes announced they they are spinning off their truck manufacturing into a new separate company called Daimler Trucks. Earlier this year, Mercedes had announced they were spening $20 million to upgrade their Detroit plant. Presumably, the new Daimler Truck firm will continue to assemble thousands on engines on the west side of Detroit.

Does anyone know any of the details about this? Will there be another expansion of that plant? Freightliner has been a leading US producer of very heavy duty trucks.

Thanks

Like that left and screw Chrysler and built their own trucks.

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Originally Posted by Danny

Like that left and screw Chrysler and built their own trucks.

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Mercedes-Benz has been producing trucks since 1926 - no connection to Chrysler.

They produce those sprinter vans that are either freight liner branded or Mercedes branded but badged under ,Chrysler,Ford etc who ever wants to put their plaque on it.

It may say Chrysler but it is a Mercedes built chassis and drive train.

I wonder if this has something to do with the European countries that are flat out banning diesel and Mercedes is converting these sprinters over to EV production.

In theory we are the last production market for those vehicles in the near future.

There is no way a majority of third world countries are going to be able to switch over to EVs anytime soon,so even the export market will still exist.

• On 7 May 1998, Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft in Germany and ChryslerCorporation in the United States of America signed a merger contract. Simultaneously, Mercedes-Benz launched a strategic model initiative in the car sector.

That is probably what dannys reference was based on,here is more details on how all of that went,or did not.

https://mwmblog.com/2019/12/01/the-f...edes-chrysler/


Daimler Truck, a spin-off from the main parent firm Daimler, began trading on the Frankfurt stock exchange on Friday.

• Daimler Truck unites seven brands under its umbrella: BharatBenz, Freightliner, FUSO, Mercedes-Benz, Setra, Thomas Built Buses and Western Star. The company aims to make sustainable transport a success, with strong technological expertise and a view to the needs of its customers.

It kinda looks like they are centering diesel production in Detroit while in the transition phase of converting everything to EV,the long term question would be,where are those vehicles going to be built is a good question.

I think it is kinda weird that each separate brand is developing EV technology while it is under one umbrella,apparently there is not going to be any consistency across platforms.

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Originally Posted by Richard

They produce those sprinter vans that are either freight liner branded or Mercedes branded but badged under ,Chrysler,Ford etc who ever wants to put their plaque on it.

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With the split of Mercedes-Benz cars and Daimler Trucks, I believe the Vans unit stays with the cars company. These are assembled in South Carolina [[and elsewhere globally).