Daimler’s Doubling Down On Alabama Production, Starts Building Battery Plant

The US market is big business for German automakers, which not only sell a lot of vehicles in America, but manufacture them here as well. That includes Mercedes-Benz, which has just celebrated to two major milestones at its principal US production site in Alabama.

Just this past Friday, Mercedes marked not only the start of production of the new GLE crossover at the Tuscaloosa plant, but also broke ground on a new battery manufacturing site just seven miles away in Bibb County.

The battery plant will be one of eight such facilities it’s building around the world – alongside three in Germany, one in China, and another in Thailand – as it enters a new era of electric-powered mobility. It’s in the process of bringing its EQ C crossover to market, and by 2022 it aims to offer over 130 different electrified models, including at least one in each series.

“The widely export oriented Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa is a high-tech production facility with a successful history and an exciting future in terms of our brand in the United States,” said Mercedes manufacturing chief Markus Schäfer. “We aim to play a pioneering role in the development of e-mobility and are well prepared to accomplish this mission.”

These are the latest chapters written by Daimler in a long history in the US that stretches back to the first cars it sold here some 130 years ago, and the opening of the Tuscaloosa factory 21 years ago. That’s when it started producing the M-Class sport-ute, the precursor to today’s GLE, which it continues to build both for local consumption and for export at the Alabama site, alongside the GLE Coupe and GLS. The factory also produces C-Class sedans for the North American market, and will also start manufacturing an all-electric SUV in the coming years.

The plant is the cornerstone of Benz’s footprint in America, which makes it one of the largest exporters of automobiles from the United States – second only to arch-rival BMW, which similarly manufactures its crossovers in nearby South Carolina. Together with the battery factory, Daimler is also building a new Consolidation Center in Alabama as well. The development comes as the Trump administration increases pressure on foreign automakers to build more vehicles in the US.