Electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian is pausing plans to produce electric vans in Europe and will no longer pursue a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Mercedes-Benz Vans.
It signed the MOU with Mercedes-Benz Vans in September 2022.
Rivian chief executive RJ Scaringe says the company looks forward to exploring opportunities with Mercedes-Benz Vans at a more appropriate time for Rivian.
“At this point in time, we believe focusing on our consumer business, as well as our existing commercial business, represent the most attractive near-term opportunities to maximize value for Rivian,” Scaringe says.
Head of Mercedes-Benz Vans Mathias Geisen says the ramp-up plan for a new EV manufacturing site in Jawor, Poland is not affected.
“While the timeline for our common European production joint venture is now on hold, the pace of our own electrification strategy at Mercedes-Benz Vans remains unchanged,” Giesen says.
“We will continue to scale up electric vehicle production in our first dedicated electric van plant,” he says.
Giesen says exploring strategic opportunities with the team at Rivian in the future remains an option.
In the MOU the two brands wanted to establish a new joint venture manufacturing company operating a factory in Europe to produce large electric vans for both brands.
The target was to build an all-new electric-only production facility leveraging an existing Mercedes-Benz site in Europe.
The two brands envisaged production-optimised vehicle designs for efficient manufacturing on common assembly lines. They wanted to produce two large vans, one based on VAN.EA (MB Vans Electric Architecture), and the other based on the second generation electric-van, Rivian Light Van (RLV) platform.
By working together, Mercedes-Benz Vans and Rivian said they would be able to leverage synergies and substantially increase cost efficiency to help make the vans more affordable for commercial customers driven by total cost of ownership.
