After the foundation stone laying in November 2014, the Topping-out ceremony was quickly there to be celebrated at the Mercedes-Benz plant in the presence of the media. The milestone means that the tallest part of the building was built. The nursery school and kindergarten will receive the kids of Hungarian employees from September – but of course, a lot is still to be done before the autumn opening. The institute that is built from European Union funds in the worth of HUF 250 million will have the capacity to receive approximately 60 children.

"Mercedes-Benz joined the program in 2012 and has been fully sponsoring it from preparations until the post-event works, including the working out of educational materials, printing costs of worksheets, training of mentors and teachers, preparation of posts, purchasing of gifts, the organization of the events and so on.

The “Moki” (MobileKids) program was launched in elementary schools in Kecskemét on 2nd, February, in the form of 3 times 45-minute-long classes. First and second-grade pupils learn about rules of pedestrian traffic and do training on what to do and how to react in a dangerous situation. With the help of situational games, children get the live and personal experience of how to prevent accidents. In the third and fourth grade, kids learn how to independently take part in traffic with their bikes or by means of public transportation. Until the end of April, a post-drawing competition takes place for children in the topic of traffic safety."

The start of production of the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake was officially celebrated with the press attending the event in the assembly shop of the Mercedes-Benz plant. Plant director Mr. Thomas Geier welcomed special guests at the occasion: among those in attendance were Hungarian Prime Minister Mr. Viktor Orbán, Member of the Divisional Board of Mercedes-Benz Cars Mr. Markus Schäfer, as well as members of the economic and political life in Hungary. The occasion was the launch of production of the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake, which is, after the CLA, the second model made only and exclusively in the Kecskemét-based plant. In the life of the factory in Kecskemét, the beginning of the serial production of the CLA Shooting Brake is a very important milestone. Working in Mercedes-Benz’s global production network, the plant contributes to a great extent to the company’s growth. The first car of the third model “Made in Kecskemét” is again offered for charity purposes, just like the two first B-Class and CLA cars were. The “Job No.1 Car” will be sold by auction and the acquired money will be donated as supporting funds for the International Children’s Safety Service.

The 250,000th car rolled off the assembly line today. The polar silver, right-hand drive Mercedes-Benz CLA AMG will be delivered to an owner in Japan. With the B-Class and CLA models manufactured here, the plant in Kecskemét contributes to a great extent to the success of the Mercedes-Benz premium compact car segment. The CLA is a model that is manufactured exclusively in Kecskemét for the entire world market. This model is especially popular in its most important market, in the United States: every fourth CLA is driven by an American customer. The plants in Kecskemét and Rastatt produce Mercedes-Benz compact cars in a flexible production network. The high-degree flexibility is made possible by the identical structure of new compact cars, so all of the models can be produced in variable order and numbers in both factories. Due to the fact that models can be manufactured in more than one plant, the individual factories can be relieved from tension and the necessary quantities can be achieved with a distribution in the production within the network – in accordance with the actual market demands for a certain model. Both plants work in three shifts.

Less than ten months after the opening of Mercedes-Benz’s newest plant in Kecskemét a new milestone was reached in the company’s history: with the official production launch of the Mercedes-Benz CLA – following that of the B-Class – the very first car of the model made only and exclusively in Kecskemét left the production line. Managing Director of Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing Hungary Kft. Mr. Frank Klein welcomed prestigious guests at the plant: Hungarian Prime Minister Mr. Viktor Orbán and Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars Division Dr. Dieter Zetsche attended the event. The Kecskemét plant achieved the goal set for the past year and produced more than 40.000 cars, thus contributing to the best year ever in the sales of the B-Class model. The first Mercedes-Benz CLA “Made in Kecskemét” car, similarly to the first B-Class made here, was again offered for charity purpose, the total amount acquired from the event will be transferred for the International Children’s Safety Service to support their work.

The Company Daimler launched production at the new car manufacturing plant based in Kecskemét as of today. Now, less than four years after the decision about the location was made by the company, the first Mercedes-Benz passenger cars, for the first time ever in Hungary, rolled off the assembly line. At the ceremonious opening Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars Division Dr. Dieter Zetsche and Managing Director of Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing Hungary Kft. Mr. Frank Klein welcomed Hungarian Prime Minister Mr. Viktor Orbán and six hundred guests. Being the first product of Mercedes-Benz’s new compact car generation a B-Class rolled off the assembly line. The production of this model began in September 2011 in Rastatt. Thanks to the increase in production capacity the company will be able to meet the growing demand for this car. Daimler invested EUR 1.4 billion in the production of the new Mercedes-Benz compact car generation: 800 million was invested in the construction of the new plant in Kecskemét and 600 million in the expansion of the plant in Rastatt. The joint production of the B-Class in Rastatt and Kecskemét provides an opportunity for the flexible and optimized utilization of the production capacity of the two plants.

"The new B-Class will be the first of the two new future compact car models that will be manufactured in Kecskemét. The construction of the plant progresses according to the plans: at present, the testing of equipment is in progress. The installation of technical equipment was accomplished in the production buildings so the technology test-run was launched in accordance with the schedule. The various levels of production testing will begin in September when the new test cars will be made and the complete production equipment gets optimized. This will render all the prerequisites given to allow for the first customer cars to roll off the assembly line in the first quarter of the year 2012.
The thousandth employee was hired by the Mercedes-Benz plant and the number of people on staff will reach two thousand by the end of the year. Workers are hired mostly for jobs in production, primarily from the region of Kecskemét. More than 2500 people will be employed at the completely built plant."

The Mercedes-Benz factory in Kecskemét can now be clearly noticed from afar thanks to the star representing the brand. The symbolic star, which makes all the world-famous brand’s headquarters and factories unmistakably recognized all over the world, was placed and put in operation on the tallest building of the plant. The star installed on the tallest building has a diameter of 6 meters and its total height including the bottom holding frame structure is 10 meter. It weighs 2,400 kg, rests on a rolling bearing that rotates at the speed of 1.8 turns per minute. Its bright polished pitted precious metal surface and the white plexiglass underneath has a chrome-effect in the daylight and thanks to LED lighting at night it appears glowing in white light.

The topping out ceremony at the car manufacturing plant in Kecskemét took place with the attendance of Minister for National Development Mr. György Matolcsy. In order to keep the determined deadlines, a new technology was applied already in the planning phase: the Kecskemét plant was the first among Mercedes-Benz factories where the plans were fully made with the help of three-dimensional digital planning, including the designs for the buildings, the technical equipment, and the production lines as well. It was of great significance for the purpose of precise scheduling of implementation works, keeping all the deadlines and staying within the set budget limits. The plant in Kecskemét was equipped with the most modern environmentally sound technology. The concept for logistics allows for saving as much as a yearly quantity of 60,000 tons of CO2 due to the usage of the industrial railway line built to the site of the plant. The choice of location for the investment had a huge advantage for the Hungarian economy: more than 80 percent of all construction works were carried out by companies located in Hungary. There will be more operation-related opportunities opening up for Hungarian partner companies later on in the future as well. As the project progresses, several suppliers already received the first assignments, there will be a number of other tender invitations announced. 17 Hungarian suppliers received orders for car production basic materials in the value of several hundred million Euros.

In the presence of Hungarian Prime Minister Mr. Gordon Bajnai, Managing Director of Mercedes-Benz’s passenger car division Mr. Rainer Schmückle and the future director of the plant Mr. Michael Frieß launched the construction works of the production plant in Hungary. The new factory will be in a joint production network with the compact car manufacturing plant in Rastatt. Preparatory construction works were started on July 1st, 2009 on the site of the future Hungarian plant. With the laying of the foundation stone began the construction works of the first building of the new factory, the paint shop. Construction will then continue at the beginning of next year with the building of the body shop and the assembly. At the same time, Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing Hungary Kft. began the hiring and training of the first group of employees. The first job positions opened in administration, human politics, and control, and the company employed the first technical experts as well, who began their appropriate training programs.