Mercedes-Benz: After 2025, some plants to be converted to only build EVs

Mercedes-Benz expects some of its existing vehicle manufacturing plants to be retooled to produce only fully electric vehicles by the second half of this decade, but it will not be spending money to build new, EV-only plants.

"Building a whole new battery-electric vehicle factory takes time. We have taken another approach,” said production chief Joerg Burzer in an interview with Reuters.

"We will certainly have some lines producing only electric vehicles in the next few years ... we also see whole factories switching to electric -- that is a topic for the second half of the decade."

As of December 2021, EVs contribute about 4.1 percent (over 99,000 units, including EQV and Smart EV) of Mercedes-Benz’s global sales, slightly lower than the BMW Group’s 4.3 percent or 101,006 units (excluding Motorrad, note that BMW Group’s report for total BMW vehicles includes bikes).

Also read: How BMW manipulated semantics to claim victory over Mercedes in 2021 sales race

Mercedes-Benz plans to become an EV-only company by 2030, but only in countries where market conditions allow.

The company is not setting a deadline for ending production of internal combustion engines, but its push towards an ‘Electric First’ strategy imply that development of combustion engines will soon stop, although it might still continue selling existing combustion engine models in certain parts of the world.

Current Mercedes-Benz EV models are built on 3 platforms, - MFA II, MRA, and EVA. Only the latter is dedicated to EVs.

In 2024, Mercedes-Benz will debut a new electric-only Mercedes-Benz Modular Architecture (MMA) designed for compact and medium-sized cars. One year later in 2025, three model EV platforms will join - MB.EA for medium to large EVs, AMG.EA for dedicated performance-oriented EVs, and VAN.EA for the next generation EQV and commercial vans.