Mercedes-Benz loves to tell us it invented the automobile in Germany, but Germany is becoming an increasingly expensive place to build one. The automaker is rapidly expanding its Hungarian operations, where it says production costs are 70 percent lower, while asking workers back home to work longer without earning more.

 

Benz’s Kecskemét, Hungary, factory has doubled annual capacity to 400,000 vehicles, making it Mercedes’ biggest European production site and second only to Beijing globally. The Hungarian operation, which built its first car 14 years ago, currently employs around 5,000 people and is adding another 3,000. But at the same time Mercedes is cutting jobs and capacity in Germany.