Mercedes-Benz plans pickup truck by 2020

PICKUP TO JOIN LINEUP AS STUTTGART CHASES VOLUME

Mercedes-Benz is planning to introduce a pickup by 2020, according to Automotive News. It will be the first for the company, if we discount a number of Unimog and G-class models, with Stuttgart planning to offer it in Europe, Australia, Latin America and South Africa. But a decision has not been made about the U.S., Volker Mornhinweg, head of Mercedes-Benz Vans, told the Wall Street Journal.

"The Mercedes-Benz pickup will contribute nicely to our global growth targets," Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche also said in a statement. "We will enter this segment with our distinctive brand identity and all of the vehicle attributes that are typical of the brand with regard to safety, comfort, powertrains and value."

Mercedes-Benz has made the decision to develop a pickup as it has noted that private owners and commercial owners alike are voicing a demand for trucks with car-like specifications. Mercedes-Benz is currently third in terms of sales volume among premium automakers, behind Audi, which occupies the top spot, and BMW. Competition for volume has motivated BMW to offer a dramatically increased variety of cars in recent years, though it has not made a move into the direction of commercial or cargo vehicles.

The company is aiming for the truck to feature a 2,200-pound payload capacity; the commercial van division of the company to be responsible for the production of the truck.

Mercedes-Benz would join Volkswagen in offering a pickup truck, with the Wolfsburg-based automaker being the only other German passenger car manufacturer to currently offer a pickup in the form of the Amarok. Opel offered a pickup in the past -- the Opel Campo based on the Isuzu Faster, which was also offered as the imaginatively named Isuzu Pickup in North America.

The potential for a Mercedes-Benz truck to be offered in North America would have to address the chicken tax, a 25 percent duty on goods like light trucks that had been imposed years ago by the U.S. in retaliation for tariffs imposed on chickens by a number of European countries. The same "chicken tax" is what is preventing other manufacturers, like Volkswagen, from offering trucks manufactured outside of the U.S.