South Africa exports Mercedes C-Class vehicles to Europe
- The Mercedes C-Class is a premium D-segment sedan whose origins date back to 1982 with the launch of the Mercedes 190, the brand's first compact sedan. From the outset, this model was produced at the Mercedes plant in Bremen, in northern Germany, not far from the site of the former Borgward Group factories, which had gone bankrupt in 1961.
- In 2015, the GLC, an SUV derived from the Mercedes C-Class, was launched and produced at the same Bremen plant. It initially supported and then surpassed the sedan in terms of sales volume. By 2024, 244,740 GLC units had been produced, while the C-Class sedan had not exceeded 43,212 units, according to official VDA figures.
- Given that the C-Class sedan was sold in 54,672 units in Europe in 2024 and 35,590 units in the United States, it was necessary – taking into account that the C-Class has not been produced in the United States since 2020 – to import the C-Class from South Africa, a country which has a production site dedicated to the Mercedes C-Class.
- In fact, the number of C-Class vehicles imported from South Africa depends each year on demand for this model in Europe and the United States, as the production capacity of the Bremen plant (currently estimated at 350,000 vehicles per year) is insufficient to produce enough Mercedes GLCs and C-Classes to meet global demand. And likely for profitability reasons, Mercedes focuses more on SUVs than sedans at its Bremen site. However, the transfer of some GLC production to the US, announced by the carmaker for 2027 (60,000 units per year), would free up capacity in Bremen and could therefore put an end to C-Class imports from South Africa.