Daimler Scraps Plan for New U.S. Van Plant

DETROIT September 23, 2003; Reuters reported that DaimlerChrylser said on Tuesday it was scrapping plans to open a new U.S. assembly plant to build its Sprinter commercial vans.

The world's fifth-largest automaker, which is struggling to nurse its U.S.-based Chrysler unit back to profitability after a $1.1 billion second-quarter loss, had been delaying construction work on the planned manufacturing facility near Savannah, Georgia, since July.

State officials had said the $750 million facility, the largest industrial plant ever to locate in Georgia, was expected to bring at least 3,000 sorely needed jobs to Pooler by 2005, a small town outside Savannah.

But company spokesmen, citing currency issues and flagging vehicle demand among other issues, said a business case could not be made for building the plant at this time.

"Right now really all we're saying is that it's not going forward. We're always looking at the market but at this stage of the game it's not going forward," DaimlerChrysler spokesman Trevor Hale told Reuters.

The plant was to have manufactured the Dodge version of DaimlerChrysler's Mercedes Sprinter van, a boxy, diesel-engined commercial van currently manufactured in Germany. Hale said the dollar's weakness was one factor working against the plant; many of the van's components would have been imported from Europe.

DaimlerChrysler currently imports partially assembled Sprinter cargo vans and fully assembled passenger vans, finishing assembly at a plant in South Carolina.