Mercedes plans €1bn electric van plant in Poland

German carmaker Mercedes-Benz said on Monday it planned to inject more than €1 billion into a new plant in Poland dedicated to building fully electric vans.
The site will be located in Jawor, southwestern Poland, where the group has already been manufacturing combustion engines since 2019 and battery systems since 2021.
"We will build our first pure electric plant in Jawor," Mathias Geisen, head of Mercedes‑Benz Vans, said in a statement.
The move would "ensure our leading position in the field of all-electric light commercial vehicles" while at the same time "preserving the long-term prospects of the existing plants in Europe", he added.
At a press conference in Warsaw, Geisen said the group planned to spend more than a billion euros on setting up the new site.
"The investment announced by Mercedes today is for Poland a very, very important investment," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters.

It comes as Mercedes-Benz and rival carmakers around the globe are spending vast sums as part of a major industry-wide shift towards electrification.
Mercedes had initially planned to partner with US start-up Rivian and build all-electric vans in Europe together. But...