The slump that the European new car market is in has had a negative effect on PSA (Peugeot-Citroën), Opel, and Fiat, and 2012 looks dim for all three brands.
Over at Mercedes-Benz the situation is quite different: the automaker announced that it is well on its way to building over 1.25 million cars in 2011. This is better than the record-breaking sales results of 2010 and is an all-time high in the company’s 125-year history. Mercedes plants are almost operating at their full capacity. This is obviously due to the increase in sales, but it is also attributed to the addition of several new shifts.
This expansion is an attempt to get back the top spot in the luxury segment and is part of the brand’s 2020 growth strategy. “Mercedes-Benz is going on the attack”, said Dr. Wolfgang Bernhard, a member of Daimler’s Board of Management. “We are securing our path to the top by extensively investing in the expansion of our high-performance production network.”
Mercedes has announced that it will invest about 2 billion euros in its Chinese operations to build three new models there starting in 2013. These will be sold on the local market only and will not be exported. The company will also break ground on a new plant in China that will build four-cylinder gasoline engines.
Mercedes also has its sights on expanding its Alabama plant. In the coming years, it will inject 2.4 billion dollars into the plant in order to add the production capacity for two new models. One will be the C-Class, which will be built there starting in 2014, and the other is an unspecified new model that will likely be the company’s answer to the BMW X6.
