The driving force in luxury motorhomes

MORELO I PROFILE

While most of us know what it’s like to embark on an epic road trip, only a select few know what it’s like to do so in a luxurious motorhome such as those produced by MORELO Reisemobile. Beginning with nothing more than a prototype, a drawing, and a dream to be the last word in luxurious motorhomes, MORELO has, in only a dozen years, fought its way up from plucky upstart to becoming the undisputed European market leader in luxury motorhome production. Sales Director Sven Stadthalter spoke to Richard Hagan about the company’s amazing journey.

The scene is Germany, in early 2010. It’s nearing the end of a typically cold European winter. Somewhere in an even colder sheet metal factory space without any heating, six skilled artisans are busy building a prototype motorhome.

The factory is so cold that the glue the men are using is frozen and has to be thawed with boiling water.

When summer arrives in June, the factory feels like an oven and it makes the already hard work even harder. Sales Director Sven Stadthalter summarised the conditions in a typically understated German fashion: “It was the most complicated situation.”

All of that discomfort and hard work paid off in August that same year, however, when the team displayed their prototype vehicle at Caravan Salon, the world’s largest trade fair for motorhomes and caravans. Attendees loved the MORELO Reisemobile prototype so much that eight orders were placed right then and there.

Revving up production

With those orders in hand, it was time for MORELO to build a production facility, so construction of the new MORELO factory duly began in August 2010. It was finished in February 2011. Since then, the company has enjoyed strong demand for its vehicles.

“Within two years, in 2012, we were already producing 180 motorhomes per year,” Mr Stadthalter revealed. “In 2015 we produced 260 vehicles and by our tenth anniversary in 2020, we were producing over 400 per year. As of 2022, we are still growing. Yet despite constant increases in capacity, we still can’t meet demand.”

In 2021, after 11 years in business, MORELO recorded a very substantial €120 million turnover. “That’s been especially impressive to us given the short time frame in which we’ve been in business,” he remarked. “But still, we are in the fortunate position of being able to sell more than we can produce.”

SUPER B

SUPER B is a Dutch manufacturer of high-end lithium iron phosphate batteries (LiFePO4) established in 2007.

We are proud to have MORELO as one of our key partners in the RV market for several years. MORELO stands for first-class motorhomes that are among the best in the world. A MORELO is always a statement of wanderlust, excellent comfort and superior quality.

We also embrace this philosophy in the development of our batteries. Every Super B battery is produced with 100% focus on quality. We select and match all our A-grade battery cells upfront. Not one single battery will leave the factory before it has been thoroughly tested: intermediate and end of line. Only this way we can guarantee the lithium batteries we produce for MORELO are reliable, safe and durable.

In the end, MORELO owners need first-class batteries to enjoy freedom and optimal comfort during their holidays.

editorial mention

TEN HAAFT

The name MORELO, like the name ten Haaft, stands for quality consciousness, reliability and pan-European expert service. Over the past 30 years, we at ten Haaft have featured numerous new and further developments and have become the foremost manufacturer of premium mobile satellite technology systems.

MORELO is a long-standing partner. We appreciate not only the extraordinarily good cooperation, but also the professional and friendly way with which we can meet every employee at MORELO.

editorial mention

SKA SITZE GMBH

In recent years, SKA Sitze GmbH has developed into one of the leading international seat manufacturers for premium class motorhomes.

We owe this success to the excellent cooperation with our customers such as MORELO Reisemobile, for whom we have been supplying the seats since their very first vehicle. Last but not least, our customers and developers set the standard for our outstanding products.

MORELO I PROFILE

Sales Director Sven Stadthalter

Naturally, the company has firmed up plans to further improve its production capacity and has set aside a €40 million budget for the process, beginning with its staff count.

From only six employees back in 2010, by 2022 MORELO employed 425 staff with plans to add another 100 in the near future.

In June 2021, the company completed a 3,500 sqm expansion to its production facility. An additional 1,000 sqm expansion to its exhibition hall/showroom is in the pipeline and furthermore, the company was reviewing improvements to its production management, efficiencies and general processes to improve throughput on its production line.

Luxury for every occasion

MORELO produces a range of six luxury motorhomes catering to a broad range of budgets and customer needs. The range is topped by the Grand Empire – an 18 tonne, 530 horsepower, 12m-long luxury estate on wheels – which MORELO refers to as the ‘benchmark’ in luxury motorhomes. The Grand Empire is a machine for the most discerning traveller and offers a vast range of luxurious optional extras and customisation. At MORELO, no customisation request is too much effort. Mr Stadthalter eagerly highlighted a particular project that really showcased the company’s ability to accommodate even the most challenging customer requests.

“For one of our most difficult projects, the customer required that we incorporate a garage at the back of the motorhome to accommodate either his Maserati or Porsche supercars. His requirement was clear: they have their home with them and they want to take their garage with them; they wanted us to make it possible to put their supercar in their MORELO.”

MORELO’s flexibility doesn’t stop there. Mr Stadthalter stressed that customer interaction and feedback is something they take so seriously that it has even resulted in the birth of a whole new, more affordable motorhome product.

“At the 2021 Caravan Salon, we introduced the MORELO Alcove directly as a result of customer requests,” he confirmed. “We’re very close to our customers and had received requests for this kind of vehicle many times in the past, but we’d always turned it down due to the difficulty of producing this kind of vehicle at the same time as our other motorhomes. The fact that we’ve introduced it now, proves how important customer feedback and market demands are to us.”

Driving away from the competition

Since its inception, MORELO has pursued an aggressive growth and expansion strategy. In 2019, the company overtook its competitors to become the European market leader. “We’re putting more and more distance between us and them every year now,” added Mr Stadthalter.

He explained that the company’s growth is fuelled by two main factors: passion and enthusiasm for what it does, and its hightech, custom-built production facility in Schlüsselfeld, Germany.

On the first point, Mr Stadthalter was adamant: “You have to understand our attitude,” he said. “We produce luxury motorhomes because it’s the only thing that we want to do. Of course, we have to make a profit, but the focus of our management is that we love what we do, it’s our passion, and we constantly try to impart that enthusiasm to all of our employees. It’s what makes our product so special, so we have to maintain the right mindset.”

That mindset is made immediately apparent in the second factor – MORELO’s advanced, custom-built production facility. 19,000 sqm worth of buildings includes a 900 sqm storage hall, and a new 5,500 sqm customer vehicle service centre.

MORELO’s production line is extremely modern and had the substantial benefit of being custom-built right from the start, to suit the company’s particular needs.

“We started from zero, on a green field,” Mr Stadthalter recalled. “From the beginning, we had the opportunity to build according to our own vision and to design our buildings ourselves. Therefore, unlike our competitors, we aren’t stuck with old, inefficient buildings and production layouts.”

MORELO’s production line is one process on a single, straight 220m-long line that is supplied with material from either side by its various pre-mount departments.

The production line is even able to cope with the production of right-hand side drive vehicles – something for which MORELO is uniquely capable of doing, Mr Stadthalter proudly revealed.

“The UK market is quite important to us and one of my favourite projects was making it possible for us to produce righthand drive vehicles in our production line,” he said. “With our passion and love for what we do, we developed a solution that involves sending right hand-drive cars through the line, backwards. MORELO is now the only manufacturer in Europe, producing a righthand drive luxury motorhome.”

As of 2022, MORELO boasts an impressive 3,500 motorhomes on the road. Its factory comfortably adds to that number as it completes a new MORELO motorhome – from the smallest in its range to the largest – every ten working days.

Reinhard Löhner, Robert Crispens, Managing Directors

The customer is always closest

At the end of May 2022, MORELO hosted its annual MORELO Open – the first one in two years as a result of Covid. The event was attended by more than 700 motorhomes and their owners which filled up MORELO’s 130,000 sqm company site.

“This was a very special event and one that we’re very proud of,” said Mr Stadthalter. “We enjoyed live music and other events and just generally had a good time. We shared ideas and of course, we did what Bavarians do and drank a lot of beer!” he added with a chuckle.

In closing, he reiterated the company’s passion for its customers: “Some manufacturers only focus on their business-to-business relationships and forget about the end customer. We understand, however, that the end customer is the most important part of the whole game.

“We see ourselves and our customers as a big family; we try to be familiar with and close to them whenever we can, talking to them and listening to what they say about our products, how they use them, and what they want from them. And of course, we love what we do. That’s what makes us special and interesting.” n