Mercedes-Benz Working Overtime to Keep up with S-Class Demand

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is selling like moonshine at a speakeasy. At the Sindelfingen, Germany plant where the S-Class is built, employees have agreed to extend their shifts by 74 minutes per day beginning in 2014. Employees were already logging an extra 30 minutes of shift time in 2013.

In addition to the popular S-Class, strong demand for the CLA-Class and GLK-Class is helping Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche with his goal of seeing Mercedes-Benz become the world’s best-selling luxury car brand once again by the end of the decade. Through November, Daimler added 21 shifts to increase A, B and CLA-Class production at its Rastatt, Germany facility. Closer to home, Daimler added 10 Saturday shifts this year at its plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which produced more than 180,000 vehicles in 2012.

With so many added and extended production shifts at plants worldwide, Zetsche just may succeed with his sales ambitions.

sources [Bloomberg, Autocar, MadeInAlabama]