From Hildburg Bruns
Slim, light, strong. Daimler-Benz is starting a new era in Marienfelde: 350,000 electric motors are to be built annually in the automobile group’s oldest plant that is still in production. That is now known.
“Preparations for the industrialization of the systems within the existing plant are already underway,” said Mercedes spokeswoman Madeleine Herdlitschka from Stuttgart.
The assembly of the electric motors is housed in building 70 – this is also where the Digital Factory Campus, which opened a year ago, is located. There, individual work steps are tested and sent to more than 30 plants worldwide via an app for replication.
No more talk of processing in Marienfelde (2500 employees) as in 2020. Digitization and electromobility are now bringing the future to the plant founded in 1902.
It’s in the extra class: The takeover of the British specialist YASA (Oxford) secured access to special technology in the field of axial flow motors. The electromagnetic flux runs parallel to the axis of rotation of the motor (and not perpendicular as in radial flux). As a result, peak and continuous power are higher, the weight is two-thirds lower and the design is narrow.
The electric motors made in Marienfelde are to be installed in the AMG plant in Affalterbach. Other models have not yet been named. A three-digit million amount will be invested in Marienfelde in the next few years.
Electric drive units (EVA 1.5) and electric control units for a battery (EE compartment) have also been manufactured in the Berlin plant since 2021. Camshafts and boosters for conventional combustion engines also come off the assembly line. Production of the six-cylinder diesel engine ended last year.