Ineos announces that it wants to produce 30,000 vehicles per year in Hambach
- The Smart factory in Hambach (France) belonged to Mercedes since 1998. The German manufacturer decided to sell it when the project to install the 100% electric EQB model there was abandoned (it will ultimately be produced in Kecskemét in Hungary). The Smart Fortwo (thermal then 100% electric) which has been manufactured there since 1998 will cease production in April 2024. New, completely different and 100% electric Smarts are manufactured in China in a Geely factory located in Ningbo (Zhejiang), following an agreement between Mercedes and Geely (50/50 JV).
- The British firm Ineos bought the French Hambach factory from Mercedes in 2021. As a result, the Ineos Grenadier (a sort of old-generation Land Rover Defender) is manufactured on the same assembly lines as the 100% electric Smart Fortwo. The two models are however the opposite of each other, the Grenadier being a large SUV with a thermal engine measuring 4.90 m long, the Smart being a small coupe with a 100% electric engine measuring 2.70 m long.
- Even if Ineos has committed to taking over 1,300 jobs out of the 1,500 on the site, the production capacity of the Hambach factory has been set at 30,000 vehicles per year and no longer 150,000 per year as under the Mercedes era.
- Manufacturing of the Grenadier started in October 2022. Eight months later, the factory reached the end of the production ramp-up in one shift, or 75 vehicles per day (15,000 per year). In July 2023, it began setting up a second team with a goal of full capacity by the end of the year, i.e. 150 vehicles per day (30,000 per year).
- To date, 5,000 Grenadiers have been produced and the objective is to reach 15,000 units in 2023 and 30,000 in 2024.