It has now been almost exactly two years since the Mercedes-Benz factory in East London started producing the famous fifth-generation C-Class Sedan for worldwide markets.
Recently, the automaker introduced the new AMG-badged C43 to the market with a brutal hybridised powertrain, which is currently positioned as the flagship in the C-Class family.
However, on 1 June the European order books opened for the maniacal C63 S E Performance which is also being built at the South African facility, meaning the C43 will soon be dethroned.
The maniacal C63 is scheduled to land in local showrooms before the end of the year, and with the first production units now rolling out of the factory, we will likely start seeing a handful of them appear on the roads in the near future.
A brief history
The East London factory first opened its doors in 1948 as Car Distributors Assembly Ltd. (CDA) where it assembled knock-down parts kits of Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
It was only in 1958 that CDA started building cars for the three-pointed star on a contractor basis, and in 1966, then Daimler-Benz took a 26.7% holding in the company. In 1984, it increased the stake to 50.1%, and since then, the subsidiary has been registered as Mercedes-Benz of South Africa (MBSA).
The year 1994 marked the first time the location started churning out the C-Class, becoming part of a global network that today consists of four factories that all produce multiple variants of the popular vehicle.
In 2015, the plant celebrated the one-millionth passenger car produced in East London.
A R13-billion investment
In preparation for building the fifth-generation C-Class, Mercedes invested a total of R3 billion into its domestic operations between 2018 and 2021.
This massive sum covered the installation of a new body shop with three additional assembly lines which totaled over 700 tonnes of steel, as well as more than 500 robots that take care of positioning and welding the body parts together.
The paint shop was overhauled, too, now making use of the brand’s tried-and-tested “Integrated Paint Process” (IP2) which saves 37% more energy than the previous method used.
“Overall, the new buildings comprise an area of approximately 100,000sqm. This reflects an addition of two-thirds of the already existing buildings for the passenger vehicle production,” said MBSA.
Further to its goal of reducing damage to the environment, MBSA installed LED lighting in all the new buildings which uses up to 90% less energy than the previous bulbs, a rainwater recycling system with storage for one million litres, solar panels with an annual yield of approximately 500MWh, battery storage containers, and “green areas” across the premises.
In addition, the company introduced more training robots to the Mercedes-Benz Learning Academy which is focused on getting the youth involved in the automotive manufacturing sector.
Despite the Covid-19 lockdowns throwing a spanner in the works, the carmaker managed to complete all the upgrades on schedule, and production of the newest four-door C-Class kicked off in June 2021.
By June 2022, it had already assembled 50,000 examples of the sedan in left-hand drive, right-hand drive, petrol, diesel, and hybrid guises.
World-class quality
Today, around two years after the first fifth-gen C-Class rolled off the production line at the East London plant, an estimated 100,000 examples have passed through the doors.
The factory operates three shifts per day running from 06h00 on Monday to 06h00 on Saturday and over 3,348 workers are on-site, resulting in a capacity to build over 500 units per day.
Each sedan visits no fewer than 32 stations on its way from being a pile of parts to a driveable car, and parts are installed using the “best-fit” approach – a method that scans the body panels to determine their exact dimensions and then positions them on the frame to be within the smallest margins of error possible.
The plant manufactures most of its own components including the doors and flanks, but “hang-on” parts such as bumpers and diffusers are produced elsewhere in the country and trucked over. A small mix of components is also imported.
All vehicles are subject to two quality-check loops before being painted where robots check the surfaces and scan welds using ultrasonic sensors to find any imperfections.
Once inside the paint booth – a sterile 200m-long airtight tunnel free of contaminants and debris that could mess up the paint particles – it starts an hour-and-a-half-long multi-step painting process consisting of a base colour and a primary hue that was chosen by the customer.
As part of the enhanced paint process, an “e-coat” is added to the shell before it enters the paint shop which removes the need to brush it with a primer.
For the first stage of the colouring operation, robotic arms with sprayer nozzles on the front spinning at a rate of 40,000rpm cover every inch of the interior and exterior of the body with the base tint.
For the second, the nozzles are surrounded by eight “fingers” which are there to apply an electrostatic charge to the paint particles to cause them to the body thereby reducing waste as well as defects.
After being doused with a coat of colour, the car moves into the next phase of assembly which is where the interior panels, dashboard and its accompanying technologies, and powertrain are all married.`
There are multiple stations where workers screw and fasten different components while a conveyor carries the car at a continuous pace through the factory, and for each vehicle, a small autonomous robot delivers a dedicated parts bin that carries all the parts needed to complete that specific unit.
The last things to be fitted are the seats, and after this, the built-up C-Class visits a specific bay where technologies such as the heads-up display, adaptive LED lights, infotainment systems, and the like are calibrated.
Before being sent to dealers, the Mercedes completes one final inspection which is a rattle-and-squeak over bumpy tracks laid out on the grounds of the campus to listen for any unwanted noises.
If the tester is satisfied, the C-Class is driven onto a truck and delivered either directly to a local dealer or to the port to go to one of 80 other countries around the globe.
Mercedes-Benz East London factory
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