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Milestone vehicles for customers in Hanover and Great Britain
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A- and B-Class are market leaders in the premium compact class
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B-Class gets off to an excellent start in China
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Extra shifts to be worked at Rastatt plant in July
Stuttgart/Rastatt – Mercedes-Benz is
celebrating two production milestones at its Rastatt plant: the
750,000th new-generation A-Class and the 500,000th B-Class will be
delivered in June. The respective vehicles, a lotus blue A 180 CDI with
a parking assistance system and a horizon blue B 180 NGT with
natural-gas drive are destined for customers in Germany and Great
Britain
"The A- and B-Class continue to be very popular
with our customers – you only have to look at their top ranking in the
premium compact vehicle segment, not to mention last month's
significantly higher sales figures", said Dr Klaus Maier, Head of Sales
and Marketing at Mercedes-Benz Cars. "At the beginning of the year,
Mercedes-Benz also introduced the B-Class in China. It is proving
outstandingly popular with Chinese customers and has already far
exceeded our expectations."
Mercedes-Benz has sold a total of more than 2.35
million units of the two model series. On the market since 1997, the
A-Class is now in its second generation which was launched in 2004. The
B-Class has been in production since 2005. Both models are particularly
popular in Germany, their largest market. In May alone, 5300 customers
in Germany chose an A-Class (corresponding figure for last year: 3400);
this represents an increase of 54 percent. B-Class sales were up by 27
percent with 3900 units delivered (last year: 3000). At 18,900 vehicles
(last year: 19,000), worldwide sales in the A- and B-Class segment in
May were at the same level as last year. After Germany, the biggest
markets for the A- and B-Class are Italy, France and Great Britain. The
largest market outside Europe is Japan.
Extra shifts to be worked at the Rastatt plant
Thanks to the significant increase in orders
from Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain over the last few weeks,
the Rastatt plant will be operating at full capacity until September.
Plant Manager Peter Wesp: "The success of the Rastatt-built A- and
B-Class is testimony to the outstanding performance of the Rastatt
production team who produce up to 1000 vehicles of the highest quality
every day. Obviously, the current order situation makes extra demands
on us, but it's also very motivating in the context of the difficult
market conditions at the moment." The third quarter will see two and
three-shift working at the Rastatt plant with extra shifts planned for
Saturdays in July.
Most popular engines, colours and optional extras
Worldwide, diesel models account for some 40
percent of A-Class sales, the most popular engines being the A 160, the
A 180 CDI and the A 180. Among B-Class customers, the top engine
choices are the B 180 CDI, the B 180 and the B 200 CDI. One out of two
B-Class customers chooses a diesel powerplant. The most popular colours
for the A- and B-Class are the metallic paint finishes cosmos black and
polar silver which together account for about one quarter of total
sales. As far as optional extras are concerned, Active Parking Assist
is a favourite. This system, which has been available for all model
variants of the premium compact cars since last year's model update,
automatically manoeuvres the vehicle into a parking space which only
needs to be 1.3 metres longer than the A-Class or B-Class. The system
uses ultrasonic sensors to identify a suitable space and informs the
driver by means of a display in the instrument cluster. After accepting
the proposed parking space, the driver only has to operate the
accelerator while the vehicle takes control of the steering and
manoeuvres itself into the space automatically.
