Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz Vans is to stop building the Volkswagen Crafter variant of the large Sprinter van when the current contract expires at the end of 2016.
The deal will not be extended or renewed. Around 150,000 Sprinters are currently built each year.
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Volker Mornhinweg, head of Mercedes-Benz Vans, said: “Both partners had a benefit from the long lasting cooperation. With the next Sprinter, which is currently in development, we will ultimately be dependent on the production capacities that we have currently made available to Volkswagen. That’s why our employees will only produce our own brands in the future.”
Europe accounts for 60% of Mercedes’ van sales while the growth markets are in South America and Asia, as well as Russia.
The Sprinter has been built in Argentina since 2007, China since 2011 and, since July 2013, manufactured by GAZ in Russia. There has also been CKD kit assembly in the US since 2010.
“As a result, the Sprinter’s global production network is already positioned to accommodate future growth and produce a new generation of vehicles,” Daimler said.
Mercedes has made Sprinter variants for VW for multiple generations. The latest contract began in 2005 with a model changeover. By the end of 2012, around 280,000 vans had been produced for VW at the Mercedes-Benz plants in Düsseldorf and Ludwigsfelde. The agreements governing the contract manufacturing were fixed to run until the end of 2016.
