Mercedes plans to invest €350 million ($410 million) into the next eSprinter.
In a Tuesday announcement, the German automaker fleshed out its development plans for the next stage of its ‘Lead in Electric Drive’ electrification plan. While we don’t currently have any more technical information, we now know when and where the company will build the ‘eSprinter’ — an all-electric variant currently sold in several European markets, but not in the United States.
Now, the next-generation eSprinter will go on sale here in the United States, but there’s more to the picture. Like the internal combustion-powered van, Mercedes aims to build its electric van in the U.S., as well as in Germany. “With production of the next-generation eSprinter in the USA and in Germany, we ensure market-oriented production. In total, we are investing around €350 million into the next generation of the eSprinter,” says head of Mercedes-Benz Vans Marcus Breitschwerdt.
Production will kick off in late 2023
The company’s North Charleston, South Carolina plant will build the Mercedes-Benz eSprinter for the American and Canadian markets. According to this statement, production will kick off “successively” in the second half of 2023. As Breitschwerdt noted above, Mercedes will also build the next-generation model at Düsseldorf and Ludwigsfelde in Germany. It’s not clear at this point whether production will take place at all three plants simultaneously, but European production may begin first, followed by the South Carolina assembly plant. The automaker did announce, however, that it will invest the same €50 million sum ($58.6 million) in each of the three plants to support eSprinter production.
With that 2023 production date, Mercedes will come in behind the Ford E-Transit, which is scheduled to arrive in mid-2021. Several startups are also planning electric van production, so we’ll have to wait and see what specs Mercedes can bring to the table. While we wait for the electric Sprinter, check out one of these camper builds below:
