2017 Mercedes-Benz Metris Worker with General Manager Marketing, Mathias Geisen

Yesterday, just next door here. Right, yeah. That's true. We are very proud of that. We had our groundbreaking yesterday, finally for our real factory here, to make sure that we don't only sell the great Sprinter here in the US but that we also produce it in the US. We had the groundbreaking yesterday, and in the next years we will build a real factory here. Currently only reassembling, we ship from Germany, but it will be a real parts-by-parts factory in the future.

I think the best thing to mention first: it applies to all manufacturers, not only Mercedes-Benz. It's called the Chicken Tax, which basically means if you want to import a cargo van from outside of the US to the US, there is a certain amount, 25%, charged for that. And to avoid that, what we do is basically we build the Sprinter in Düsseldorf, Germany. Immediately afterwards, we disassemble it into various parts. Perfect finished product, yeah, perfectly finished product, quality product. We disassemble once again, we put it in different vessels, ship it to the US, bring it here to the factory, and then merge the components again here in this factory, do a new quality check, and then sell it here in the US. And this is why we finally said, we have so great sales numbers here in the US, we have to have our own factory here, a part-by-part factory, being closer to our second biggest market worldwide for the Sprinter.

We're still successful. And as I said, the only thing you can avoid is having your own factory here. And that applies to all vans. It's a pretty complicated process, but it still makes more sense than 25%. But of course, the time to market is an issue, and this is why it makes a lot of sense really producing right here in the US.

So what you see outside is currently building, but that will pretty soon, over the next years, the real factory, part-by-part factory. All the suppliers will come to this, and step by step then be able to roll out of this factory.

The eSprinter is very successful, and we decided that it has exactly the right size for this market. Much better than a small van, capabilities comparable to larger vans, but a very, very nice and handy footprint. And this is why we think it's the right size for this market.

We have seen that. We launched it in October last year, and the first vehicles got shipped to customers. Now after one year, we are offering the Worker Line for the eSprinter, just like we did with the Sprinter. The Worker Line means we want to address all customers of vans. We had many customers telling us they love driving a Mercedes-Benz van. The eSprinter is competitive, close to small vans in price but with capabilities comparable to larger vans. At $2,595, it's pretty aggressive. Commercial vehicles from Mercedes-Benz are very successful outside the US, but here people know us more for luxury cars. We have to overcome that perception. Our company is the world's largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles, with many brands. Here in the US, we are strong with Freightliner, which belongs to our company. So we have a lot of brands. Mercedes-Benz stands for cost efficiency. Now, because of this PR perception of being expensive, we have to overcome that. The eSprinter is as affordable as other vans but brings all the benefits of owning a Mercedes-Benz. It's heavy-duty work commercial, with many uses. Here at the plant, we see at least 20 different variants, from ambulances to everything.

That's not true. No, exactly. But this you can work more hours than that. And I think this is the feedback we get from customers. We can talk a lot about cost efficiency, we can talk a lot about safety, but what we really need to do is get the customers in the van, make them drive the van, and I think they figure out the huge difference to other products themselves. Hopefully work more than hours. Thank you.