News : Nissan invests heavily in the UK

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Nissan’s next new C-segment hatchback will be built at its Sunderland plant, near Washington.  The car is due to be released in 2014, and increases the company’s investment in the UK massively, creating 225 jobs (to total 6225) at the factory as well as 900 in the supply chain by 2014.

Nissan’s £127m investment in the UK is being supported by £8.2m from the government’s regional growth fund, and comes on the back of the announcement the new Invitation will also be built here from 2013. Most impressively is that the addition of the invitation and the new hatchback (possibly a plug-in or hybrid version of the Leaf) means that total production in the North East will be up to 550,000 vehicles. This is excellent news for UK manufacturing, and adds to the 26-year history of the factory.

Nissan chief operating officer Toshiyuki Shiga said: ‘In Europe, Nissan has achieved record growth in recent years by providing innovative, customer-focused models like Qashqai and Juke that are designed, developed and produced within the region.’ Vice president of Nissan manufacturing in the UK Kevin Fitzpatrick added: ‘A vote of confidence in UK’

Keith Adams

21 Comments

  1. Fantastic. More than 6000 jobs right here in the UK. Just shows how good management, innovative products and a well financed long term view have all gone together to show just what a great place this country really is to make high quality reliable cars that are really competitive, and sell!

  2. I doubt if any Renaults would be built here, but it seems that they are being careful not to ‘overlap’ models between themselves and Nissan which makes sense. I am a bit surprised that there is to be a Nissan badged family hatch back type as I remember an announcement some time ago that Renault would make the ordinary run of the mill type cars while Nissan would do the ‘niche’ types – 4wd, &’Juke’ for example. Whilst on one of my frequent trips to the garage with my Scenic, a salesman there told me they were stopping the Laguna and smaller Modus. Not sure whether that is just in rhd form though.

  3. @sixtyten.

    NMUK is a MANUFACTURING base, cars are fully built here, including powertrain, BIW etc. Very large R&D facility in the UK too, NETC and much engineering work in the Tier 1 and 2 supplier base.

    I have worked on a number of projects for Nissan over the years and so have many thousands of other British automotive engineers.

    Enjoy the news and celebrate the achievement

  4. @tony
    tony i think he was refering to a quote somone made at the time nissan first built the sunderland plant and how far they have come since then.

    and also good news

  5. Who would have thought that in 1986 when the first Bluebirds were assembled there, that production would reach these levels? Back in those days car manufacturing was concentrated in the Midlands and shipbuilding/mining in the north… big difference now.

    Be interesting to see what this new C segment car looks like… hopefully better than the Almera. Bring it on

  6. @7
    Renault are stopping selling Laguna etc in UK only due to poor sales/Strong competition
    The Nissan Note & Renault modus(Same car) are made at Sunderland

  7. @Jeff

    Just RHD. In France you can get all sorts of Renaults, like diesel Fluences (which sell well in Ireland..), the Laguna and the new Latitude big saloon.

  8. Nissan make all sorts of innovations that we don’t recognise- Nissan are spectaculary humdrum yet brave and innovative. They make bread and bitter cars like the x trail but when they are innovative and take a gamble, they get big rewards. So well done to them- they do much more than mg uk – building proper almost British cars as opposed to shitty Chinese half built shit cans that we know as the current mg range

  9. Little acorns,this is what we will be saying in 10-15 years about SAIC UK. Am i correct in understanding that Nissan/Renault is an “alliance”only?

  10. Great news for the UK economy!

    Hard to believe the Sunderland plant has been in operation for 26 years! I do remember well it opening – I was a student in nearby Middlesbrough at the time – but 26 years ago! I must be getting old!!

  11. As a further demonstration that we still build very good cars here in Britain and can compete with the best assembly plants in Europe, Nissan’s assembly plant in Washington has been the most efficient and productive in the UK since the early 1990s.

    Again, as already said by someone else, it just shows what good management, up-to-date manufacturing facilities and training, together with a good product that consumers want to buy can deliver.

    This is very good news.

  12. Good news for UK economy indeed! Now it’s up to you buy British made Nissans ( and Honda, Toyotas and Astras) instead of silly buying Ford and bimmers,

  13. I read elsewhere that very soon Nissan will be building more cars here than Italy’s entire car output. Either way I think it is brilliant news, Jobs Jobs Jobs , that’s all that matters in my book.

  14. The last I heard was the ‘Latitude’ was going to be the new UK ‘Safrane’ and they were going to kill the Laguna. Still nothing can be worse than the 140mph garden shed known as the Vel Satis.
    Nissan are making some of the ugliest cars on the planet at the moment. The sniffpetrol ‘not an ad’ about the Juke, aka “It looks good, in the dark’ was spot on. The Leaf looks like the lovechild of a jellymould and a cowpat.
    But nothing, nothing compares to the horror that is the Peugeot 308 coupe. I’ve only seen the one, in a Comet car park in Stanway – looking at that is like the inverse of waking up next to Halle Berry – you have to reach out and touch it, to reassure yourself that the styling disaster sitting in front of you in all its lardy glory – isnt some sort of daytime cheese-dream hallucination.

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