The Sindelfingen and Bremen plants will start production again next week. Because of the pandemic, employee health is a top priority, Daimler emphasizes. Protecting drivers from viruses will also be a priority in the future.
From Monday at Daimler in Germany, cars will roll off the assembly line for the first time after the Corona break. The Sindelfingen and Bremen passenger car plants will start producing the E- and S-Class. Despite the massive slump in profits in the first quarter due to the corona pandemic, business for the German automobile manufacturer Daimler in the world’s largest sales market has apparently stabilized again. “In China alone, we were able to sell around 50,000 vehicles in March. That makes us confident,” says Production Director Markus Schäfer of the “Bild am Sonntag”. From January to March, Mercedes-Benz delivered around 477,400 cars worldwide.
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China is also the most important sales market for the S-Class built in Sindelfingen. A few hundred vehicles normally roll off the assembly line every day. “We will not reach this number again at the start of production next week,” says the production board. In the current situation, protecting employees is a top priority, he emphasizes. Half of the 19,000 employees at the Untertürkheim main plant currently work in the home office.
“Next Generation Air Purification”
In the future, not only the health of employees will be a top priority, but also that of drivers. Mercedes wants to develop new types of virus filters to protect against viruses and bacteria, as Schäfer told the newspaper. “In the future, next-generation air purification such as high-performance particle filters – so-called HEPA filters – that can also filter viruses and bacteria will be the subject of our development.”
On the subject of purchase premiums for drivers, Schäfer says: “Basically, as a company, we consider measures that could increase customer demand in this period of great uncertainty to be considered worth considering.” Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder had proposed on Saturday to add thousands of euros to the previous premiums of up to 6,000 euros for electric cars. “This could be used to finance a 10,000 euro premium for high-quality ecological cars.”
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