Smart celebrates 1.5 million Fortwo models built, prepares to upgrade factory

Thu, 18 Jul 2013

Smart is celebrating 1.5 million Fortwos built since 1998 at its plant in Hambach, France, before it goes offline for an extended summer break. The 1.5 millionth Fortwo is a white Electric Drive Cabriolet, but it isn't known which market it will be sold in.

The milestone is highlighted by the reason for the extended break, which starts in July and continues through August: The plant will be receiving a 200 million euro upgrade to prepare it for a next-generation Smart vehicle, a newly designed "four-seated urban mobility car" (aka, the 2015 Smart Forfour) that will be available in 2014. In addition, a new, environmentally friendly liquid-paint shop will be built at the plant, replacing the old powder-paint shop and representing the largest individual project in the upgrade, requiring a cool 50 million euro.

For more details on Smart's immediate future, check out the press release below.

- Milestone vehicle produced before the beginning of extended summer break with massive construction works

- Dr. Annette Winkler: "1.5 million smart fortwo vehicles underline the uniquely compact smart's success as city car. It inspires drivers in more and more metropolitan areas around the world, because no other car is so perfectly adapted to urban driving."

- Dr. Joachim Betker: "Our unique location concept, our qualified and highly motivated workforce as well as our high production quality largely contribute to this success."

Next milestone in the plant history: the smart Hambach plant produced the 1.5 millionth smart fortwo. The milestone vehicle, a white smart forwo electric drive cabrio, rolled off the production line before the beginning of the extended summer break: production will be paused for almost two months in July and August, as massive efforts are being taken to prepare the plant optimally for future production requirements with the renewal of large parts of the production installations.

"1.5 million smart fortwo vehicles underline the uniquely compact smart's success as city car. It inspires drivers in more and more metropolitan areas around the world, because no other car is so perfectly adapted to urban driving. And with traffic and parking becoming increasingly challenging in these areas, many more smart will follow, " said Dr. Annette Winkler, head of smart. "Powered by combustion engine or increasingly with fully-electric drive train, as private and fleet vehicle and also as tailored car for mobility concepts like car2go, the smart meets a worldwide demand. As of 2014, we will additionally offer our customers an entirely newly developed four-seated urban mobility car again."

"The entire workforce of the Hambach plant is proud to have put 1.5 million smart fortwo vehicles on the road," said Dr. Joachim Betker, head of the smart Hambach plant. "Our unique location concept, our qualified and highly motivated workforce as well as our high production quality largely contribute to this success."

Just recently, smart took the prime spot in the 'City Car' segment of this year's IQS ('Initial quality study) ranking published by the renowned market research institute J.D. Power. This study is based on feedback from U.S. owners regarding the quality of their new vehicles in the first 90 days of ownership.

Plant sets course for the future

The massive construction works in the extended summer break mark the largest upgrade which the plant has seen since the start of production in 1998 – among others, a large part of the assembly installations are completely renewed. The new installations, which bring state-of-the-art production technology to the plant, lead to many improvements for flexible processes in various areas of production.

Investment for these upgrades is part of the significant overall investments of more than EUR 200 million for the expansion and modification of the plant plus preparatory measures for the successor series to the current smart, which at the same time secure the plant's future. One of the largest individual projects with a total investment of more than €50 million is the new paint shop where an environmentally-friendly liquid painting process that meets the current Daimler Group standard for passenger car plants replaced the previous powder painting process. The new paint shop greatly expands the variety of paint colours that can be realised, which means that in future smart customers will also be able to choose the colour of the tridion safety cell of their smart from all available paint finishes.

A success story: the smart plant in Hambach

The smart plant in Hambach was inaugurated in 1997 and has produced the smart fortwo since 1998 – in its second generation since 2007. In 2012 more than 104,000 vehicles rolled off the production line. Approximately 1,500 people work at the site, consisting of about 800 employees at smart France itself and further at the seven system partners on site. The one millionth smart fortwo was built in September 2008, coinciding with the tenth birthday of the brand.

The plant in Lorraine has always stood for an innovative production concept. The assembly line has the shape of a "plus" symbol to enable it to optimally meet assembly and logistics requirements, ensuring highly efficient production processes. This principle enables system partners and suppliers to deliver modules right to the assembly line. Transport and logistics are therefore reduced to a minimum – an advantage not least also in ecological terms.

In addition, the construction principle of the vehicle and a modern energy concept ensure that the smart brand's ecological product responsibility is translated into the production: For example, smartville has its own thermal power station that produces heat for the plant and covers approximately 25 per cent of its demand for electricity. In the site's sewage treatment plant, the wastewater is immediately treated at its origin, using a membrane filter system. The quality of the treated wastewater is superior to the quality of the natural waters it is discharged into.

Last year, an expert jury awarded the plant with the "Trophée de l'Excellence Industrielle 2012" for its production model and its particularly efficient logistics concept. The award is presented by the French trade magazine 'Usine Nouvelle' and the international business schools INSEAD and WHU.

By Damon Lowney