Mercedes-Benz do Brasil reached, at the end of October, the historic milestone of producing 3 million engines for trucks and buses. This number refers to the volume accumulated since 1956, when it pioneered the manufacture of the first national diesel engine.
The engine that symbolizes this milestone is the heavy OM 457 LA. Manufactured at the São Bernardo do Campo plant, the same place where the first unit was produced, which equipped the classic L-312 truck, the “Torpedo”.
Motors equip vehicles destined for the Brazilian market and around 60 other countries
The brand's engines equip trucks in all segments, from light and medium, through semi-heavy to extra-heavy. They also cover the entire line of urban and intercity bus chassis.
“We currently have an assembly line for the OM 900 family of 4 and 6 cylinders, complying with Euro 3 to Euro 5 legislation, with power ranges between 156 and 326 hp”, informs Carlos Santiago, deputy President of Operations at Mercedes-Benz do Brasil. “Another line is responsible for assembling engines from the OM 400 family of 6 cylinders, Euro 3 to Euro 5, with power between 345 and 510 hp.”
The Company also supplies diesel engines to other Daimler Group units. As of August of this year, it began exporting the OM 460 Euro 3 to Daimler's German plant in Wörth, Germany, for use in the Actros road truck and the Arocs and Zetros off-road trucks. These vehicles are exported to African and Middle Eastern markets.
In 2013, the Company started to send OM 900 medium engines to Daimler Buses in Monterrey, Mexico. In 2001, it made the first exports of Brazilian propellants, the heavy OM 400 to Detroit Diesel, in the United States.
From 1956 to 1990, it produced light and medium engines. As of 1991, it began to manufacture heavy vehicles. In 1998, also in a pioneering way, it launched the first electronic diesel engines in Brazil. And in 2005, it started producing remanufactured products from the RENOV line, for the aftermarket, at its unit in Campinas, in the interior of São Paulo.
“In 2006, we broke the production record in Brazil, with 110,000 engines produced in that year alone”, says Carlos Santiago. “We reached 1 million engines in 1984. Then we reached 2 million in 2004.”
