Argentine Plant Investment
Mercedes-Benz opens $110m truck plant in Argentina
Daimler Truck's $110m Zárate Industrial Center marks Mercedes-Benz's first fully dedicated truck and bus plant in Argentina, combining assembly, pioneering parts remanufacturing and a national logistics network, on the 75th anniversary of Argentine operations.
Seventy-five years after it first assembled a truck beyond Germany's borders, Daimler Truck has opened what it describes as a wholly new chapter for its Argentine operations. On 12 May 2026, Mercedes-Benz Camiones y Buses, the company's local subsidiary, inaugurated the Zárate Industrial Center, a 20-hectare complex situated north of Buenos Aires along National Route 9 at kilometre 90. Total investment in the site reached $110 million.
Positioned near the port and on a principal national road, the plant offers tangible advantages in the movement of vehicles and components across Argentina's vast geography. Where its predecessor site at Virrey del Pino served as a general-purpose facility, Zárate has been conceived with a single purpose in mind: the production of trucks and buses under the Mercedes-Benz brand, and nothing else.
Building on 75 years of industrial heritage, this state‑of‑the‑art site gives us, for the first time, a 100 per cent focus on trucks and buses in Argentina and strengthens the role in Daimler Truck's global production network
A heritage reborn on new ground
The inauguration coincides with a significant milestone. Seventy-five years ago, Mercedes-Benz opened its plant at Virrey del Pino, the first production facility the company had ever established outside Germany. The vehicle that rolled off that line, the LO 3500, was Argentina's first Mercedes-Benz truck, and the platform on which the country's first Mercedes-Benz bus was built. That lineage has now been transplanted into a facility designed for the demands of the present and the ambitions of the future.
Achim Puchert, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Trucks, was present at the inauguration ceremony: "The opening of our new Zárate plant marks an important new chapter for Mercedes‑Benz Trucks in Argentina. Building on 75 years of industrial heritage, this state‑of‑the‑art site gives us, for the first time, a 100 per cent focus on trucks and buses in Argentina and strengthens the role in Daimler Truck's global production network. This step underlines our long‑term commitment to Argentina, our employees – and, of course, to our customers!"
Production at the heart of the complex
The new facility assembles Atego and Accelo trucks alongside a range of bus chassis, including both front-engine and rear-engine configurations, the OF and OH model series respectively. These vehicles serve a market in which Mercedes-Benz holds a commanding position. In 2025, Mercedes-Benz Camiones y Buses held a market share of 33.4% in trucks and an even more striking 61.3% in buses, figures that reflect a degree of dominance unusual in any mature commercial vehicle market, and one that places significant obligations on the supply infrastructure behind the badge.
Till Oberwörder, CEO of Daimler Buses, offered a perspective that extends beyond pure industrial logic: "In Argentina, buses are much more than a means of transport – they are part of everyday life. With our new Zárate plant, we at Daimler Buses are strengthening our ability to serve millions of passengers with reliable, locally built buses, from city routes to long‑distance travel. At the same time, the site enables innovation – from efficient conventional chassis to electric mobility – supporting our customers in shaping sustainable mobility for the future."
Argentina's first remanufacturing facility
Adjacent to the main production floor, and equally significant from a supply-chain perspective, is a plant that has no equivalent elsewhere in the country. The remanufacturing unit processes used truck and bus components, restoring them to serviceable condition and returning them to market at a fraction of the cost of new parts. Its portfolio spans gearboxes, engines and cylinder heads, and more than 9,600 parts have already been delivered since operations commenced.
For fleet operators managing ageing vehicles in a market where currency pressures weigh heavily on purchasing decisions, a facility of this kind is not a peripheral convenience but a material competitive advantage.
The decision to site the remanufacturing operation within the same complex as vehicle assembly reflects a broader logic at work. Proximity reduces friction, shortens feedback loops between production and aftermarket, and reinforces the kind of integrated service proposition that large fleet customers increasingly expect of their vehicle partners. That Argentina is the first market in the region to receive such infrastructure signals the country's weight within Daimler Truck's Latin American strategy.
Logistics and the 24-hour promise
Completing the industrial complex is the Spare Parts and Components Logistics Center, formally opened in December 2024, several months ahead of the main plant inauguration. The centre provides nationwide distribution across Argentina, with delivery windows of 24 to 48 hours. In a country of Argentina's territorial scale, that is a commitment that requires both physical infrastructure and organisational discipline to honour consistently. Its integration within the Zárate complex, rather than as a remote distribution hub, signals a deliberate attempt to bring spare parts availability into alignment with the speed at which modern fleet operators expect to be served.
Market leader at 75
Mercedes-Benz Camiones y Buses is headquartered in Munro, Buenos Aires Province, and operates a Training Center in the province's northern zone, as well as the new Zárate plant. Its commercial network spans 45 customer service points across the country, a footprint that underpins the market share figures and gives the remanufacturing and logistics operations genuine national reach from which to operate.
The Zárate Industrial Center is, in that sense, both a consolidation and an extension of what has been built over three quarters of a century. It reinforces Daimler Truck's global production network, as Puchert indicated; but it also plants a considered industrial stake in a region where, for millions of passengers boarding a bus each morning, the three-pointed star has long since ceased to be a foreign mark and become simply part of the landscape.
