Mercedes-Benz wants to build a factory for electric vans in Poland. "While we flexibly manufacture vans with combustion engines and electric drives on one line in all of our existing plants, we will set up our world's first all-electric plant in Jawor," said the head of Mercedes-Benz Vans, Mathias Geisen, according to a statement on Monday. For the time being, nothing will come of the planned cooperation with the US electric car manufacturer Rivian.
According to statements made at a press conference in Warsaw together with the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the group intends to invest more than one billion euros in the plant in the coming years. This should be geared towards the coming generation of purely electrically powered, large vans that are based on a new architecture. The company did not provide any information on the planned production volume.
US company Rivian is not involved
Meanwhile, the electric car manufacturer Rivian put its plans for joint production of vans with Mercedes, which it had announced in September, on hold. As both sides announced, the US company prefers other projects.
Mercedes and Rivian had planned to produce exclusively purely electric vans from both companies in a joint factory within a few years. Mercedes spoke at the time of "significant cost advantages". Jawor would have been the intended location - however, according to a spokeswoman, the Stuttgart-based company is pushing ahead with the plans for a pure e-transporter factory, regardless of possible partnerships.
Morawiecki was pleased about the planned investments. The Prime Minister said that the confidence is a clear sign of how Poland is developing its industry and trying to create good location conditions.
The decision in favor of Jawor depends, among other things, on the granting of subsidies, it said. The carmaker has had an engine plant with more than 800 employees in the district town about 50 kilometers west of Wrocław since 2017.
According to the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, the investment is expected to create more than 2,500 jobs. A tweet from the ministry even said that Mercedes would invest 1.3 billion euros in Jawor.
