TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Mercedes-Benz will not minimize spending on future electrical automobiles even because it copes with supply-chain value pressures exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine battle, the German automaker’s CEO mentioned Tuesday.
Ola Okayällenius, talking through the firm’s opening of its first U.S. EV battery manufacturing facility, additionally affirmed the corporate’s 2022 monetary outlook remained in place regardless of the battle.
“We all the time shield the funding into future expertise and future merchandise,” Okayällenius instructed Reuters. “That’s the seed which we’ll harvest. Not even in COVID yr of 2020 did we in the reduction of on R&D for essential tasks.”
Mercedes is working with suppliers in Ukraine whose operations have been disrupted, he added, but it surely was “too early to inform what the broader ramifications can be.”
Rocketing gasoline costs since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has amplified the challenges for established automakers that also depend on fossil fuel-powered automobiles for earnings. And hovering costs for supplies utilized in EV batteries like nickel, closely mined in Russia, have additionally harm the business.
Okayällenius is attempting to speed up the shift by Mercedes from combustion expertise firm to a agency whose merchandise don’t emit carbon and depend on software program and computing energy.
Mercedes and different established automakers path Tesla in EV gross sales and in growing pc and software program programs to compete with the U.S. agency’s stream of recent options and updates.
Daimler Truck cut up from Mercedes in December and Okayällenius mentioned Tuesday he noticed no motive for Mercedes to additional separate EVs from the combustion-engine operations. Some buyers have pushed established automakers to create pure EV items.
“There is just one Mercedes-Benz and that one firm before many individuals suppose can be an all-electric firm,” Okayällenius mentioned in an interview.
Mercedes additionally mentioned on Tuesday that Japan-based battery maker Envision AESC would provide battery modules for U.S.-made Mercedes EVs from a brand new U.S. plant by the center of the last decade. Automotive Information first reported the story.
Alongside the launch of its Bibb County, Alabama, battery plant, Mercedes additionally previewed a big electrical SUV to be constructed on the close by Tuscaloosa, Ala., meeting facility this yr.
The EQS SUV and a smaller EQE electrical SUV, additionally to be made in Alabama, be part of a rising lineup of electrical SUVs in search of to problem Tesla within the U.S., China and Europe.
The battery plant, which is able to make use of 600 staff, and the meeting facility are a part of a 40 billion euro ($44 billion) drive by Mercedes to go all electrical by 2030, the place markets enable.
Mercedes, which plans to supply EV batteries in Europe, North America and Asia, goals to have eight cell factories with companions around the globe with capability to supply 200 gigawatt hours a yr by the top of the last decade.
The Mercedes Alabama meeting plant, which turns 25 this yr, can construct each electrical and combustion automobiles, and is without doubt one of the largest Mercedes vehicle-making vegetation on this planet.