Daimler Spending $1.3B at Alabama Plant, Truck Coming?
Daimler announced Friday that it would spend $1.3 billion in its Tuscaloosa, Alabama factory to upgrade its equipment and technology, and to also add a 1.3 million square-foot body shop.
The investment will also add 300 jobs to the plant, which produces the C-Class and GL-class — and perhaps GLT? — and work is reportedly already underway. The plant has been open since 1997 and has predominantly produced SUVs, although its future products are less clear.
Mercedes is reportedly preparing to make a truck, based on the Nissan Navara, to release in global markets. In Frankfurt, the updated Nissan Navara and related Renault Alaskan made their debuts, although only the Navara will have a life in the U.S. — probably as the next Frontier. Mercedes would need to produce its pickups in the NAFTA zone to avoid a Chicken Tax if they were to sell one here. (Sprinter doesn’t care.)
According to the automaker, the plant improvements will add hybrid capability to their SUVs, including the GLE.
The investment will reportedly create a much larger “marriage station,” which is where bodies will meet chassis. Mercedes produced more than 230,000 cars at the plant in 2014, and will reportedly make more than 300,000 cars this year, according to Reuters.
The improvements will reportedly be complete by 2017.
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An F-150 with the W222 interior would be very nice!!! Champagne flutes instead of double wide cup holders.
I really don't know how many MB pickups are in demand in the US, especially midsizers. The Chicken Tax issue has been around for a long time. The removal of the Chicken Tax would do more good than harm. I would of thought VW would sell more Amaroks than MB pickups. The next Frontier will be the narrow body version of the global Navara.
I could see a 4-door crew cab version of the G-Class doing quite well, but the problem is there is to much disparity in the price of the SUV version. To sell in decent numbers the thing would have to be priced around $70-80k. Unfortunately, the SUV is nearly double that in price. This is of-course for a semi-mainstream vehicle. Crew cab 5.5L V8, none of that crazy 6x6 AMG stuff.
Luxury SUVs sell wonderfully in America. Luxury trucks, not so much. Even if they never face anything rougher than a gravel road with an empty bed, I imagine most truck owners want to at least *believe* they might use their truck to do 'truck stuff'. Even GM and Ford gave up on luxury trucks (Escalade EXT\Mark LT), and nobody would argue that they know how to build trucks and understand the market. As for the GLE Coupe, I didn't think anything could make the X6 look good but I was wrong. These things are sprouting up like flowers around here. They somehow manage to look like a car on stilts more than almost anything else on the road.