Mercedes Says It Needed Nissan To Help Create X-Class

Mercedes-Benz has hit out at critics calling its X-Class nothing more than a re-badged Nissan Navara saying automakers must use economics of scale when building light commercial vehicles.

In an interview with Motoring at the international debut of the X-Class in Cape Town, South Africa, Mercedes-Benz Vans global head Volker Mornhinweg said the automaker won’t be able to achieve the number of sales it does with its passenger cars with the X-Class. Consequently, partnering with the Renault-Nissan Alliance was a necessity.

“In the LCV business it’s a common approach to work with alliance partners, and a lot of companies are working together quite successfully In the LCV business it’s a common approach to work with alliance partners, and a lot of companies are working together quite successfully.

“If we would like to be attractive from a price perspective, we have to work on things together. We cannot achieve, in our LCV segment, the huge amounts of numbers as the [Mercedes-Benz] passenger cars can,” Mornhinweg said.

The X-Class will be built in both Argentina and Spain and specifically target customers in South Africa, Europe and Australia. According to Mornhinweg, the marque’s goal of introducing the X-Class at short notice also gave it no choice but to team up with Nissan.

“We had a target of introducing the car [X-Class] at a short-term notice, and as it’s a global product, we could not build-up one facility for this product.

“Therefore we discussed it with Nissan, if they [sic] are keen or have the willingness to work with us. They have a long tradition of doing pickups, and their base overall was useable for us, so we had it done,” he said.

At launch, Mercedes will offered the X-Class with two four-cylinder engines. Initially, there will be the X 220 d with a 2.3-liter turbo-diesel delivering 163 PS and the X 250 d with a bi-turbo-diesel churning out 190 PS.