250,000th Mercedes-Benz rolls off production line in Kecskemét
Just two and a half years after its opening, the youngest Mercedes-Benz plant in Kecskemét, Hungary, saw its 250,000th vehicle roll off the line today. The milestone vehicle, a right-hand drive, polar-silver CLA 45 AMG, is destined for a customer in Japan, reported the German car maker on its website today.
"250,000 vehicles made at the Kecskemét plant with the typical Mercedes top quality- that is something that our entire team can rightly be proud of. All of our employees have made a personal contribution to this achievement, which marks another important milestone for us as the youngest Mercedes-Benz plant.
This kind of achievement is only made possible by the capability and dedication of each employee," said Thomas Geier, Director of the Mercedes-Benz plant in Kecskemét. Geier also expressed the company's special thanks to all Hungarian partners in the political, administrative and social areas for the continuous, constructive partnership.
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The Kecskemét plant plays an important part in the success of Mercedes-Benz in the luxury compact car segment by producing the B-Class and the CLA, which is made exclusively in Kecskemét for all markets. In the year to August, almost 290,000 customers opted for a compact of the A-Class, B-Class, CLA-Class or GLA-Class.
Since its market launch in Europe in April 2013, Mercedes-Benz has handed over more than 100,000 CLA cars to customers all over the world. The CLA is a big hit in its single most important market, the USA. Every fourth vehicle of the model series is driven by an American customer.
About the Mercedes-Benz compact car production network
The new Mercedes-Benz compacts are produced in the flexible production network of the plants in Rastatt, Germany, and Kecskemét, Hungary. The high degree of flexibility is on the one hand due to the joint architecture of the new compacts, thanks to which all models at each location can be built in any order and volume.
On the other hand, models produced at several locations serve as levers allowing the plants to breathe and to allocate units optimally in the production network, always according to market demand for individual models. Both plants operate in three shifts (Rastatt since October 2012, Kecskemét since May 2014).
Production of the B-Class started in both plants as the first product of the new generation (Rastatt: September 2011, Kecskemét: March 2012). The new A-Class has been built in Rastatt since July 2012. As the second product from Kecskemét, production of the CLA started in January 2013. Production of the compact SUV GLA began in Rastatt in December 2013.
The Kecskemét plant will also produce the fifth compact model, the CLA Shooting Brake, which will be launched onto the market in 2015. At the end of 2013, the number of staff in Rastatt stood at about 6.600, in Kecskemét at about 3,400.
Additional production capacities for the A-Class have been available to Daimler since August 2013 with the contract manufacturing at the Finnish production specialist Valmet Automotive, where more than 100,000 vehicles of the model series are planned to roll off the line until 2016.
Furthermore, local production of the GLA for the Chinese market will begin in 2015 at BBAC's (Beijing Benz Automotive Corporation, joint venture of Daimler and its Chinese partner BAIC) production location in Beijing.
