A Boost for UK Car Manufacturing as Nissan Increase Presence in Sunderland
Published Date: 30th Nov 2015
Nissan plan to invest £250 Million into their Sunderland plant, to start the manufacture of the Premium Brand Infinite
The Japanese car-maker has given the UK a big boost in the last 24 hours, by announcing the production of Infinite cars at its Sunderland Plant. Nissan have been a force in UK car production for the last decade, exporting new cars like the Nissan Qashqai, Nissan Juke and Nissan X-trail all around Europe.
The £250 million will be injected directly into Sunderland and will pave the way for many more jobs for British workers. The decision to make Infinite car in the UK shows the confidence Car-makers have in the UK and our economy.
The Nissan Sunderland plant has been a great success story for UK manufacturing and this will rally the UK car market even more. The factories works make on average over a 100 cars each every year, the factory itself has made 500,000 cars a year for the last 4 years. This is its maximum capacity, and is more cars than the whole of Italy produces on an annual basis.
Nissan Infiniti Q30
The Infiniti Q30 will be one of first models produced by Nissan at the north-east plant, it will compete as a mini SUV/hatchback against cars such as; the Mercedes GLA, BMW 1 Series and Audi A3. Nissan will be aiming to increase production numbers beyond 550,000 by producing an extra 60,000 Infiniti branded cars each year.
The Infiniti Q30 will be a big hit for the local area, as it has already created jobs at ground level and Nissan expect to increase their employment levels further, to a figure of 6,700 in total. Nissan estimate that they have already created close to a 1,000 jobs through the Nissan supply chain, all from the local area.
Nissan Qashqai
Nissan built over 300,000 Nissan Qashqai’s last year, at the Sunderland plant alone. The success of the Nissan Qashqai does not live and die in the UK, as over half of the Crossover/Suv model are shipped around Europe, as far as Russia and beyond.
In total Nissan have produced more than 2,000,000 Nissan Qashqai’s over the last 5 years from the Sunderland plant and there are no signs of production of the multi-award winning SUV/Crossover slowing down. Another boost to Sunderland’s fortunes happened earlier this year when the avid Japanese car-maker announced that the latest generation Nissan Juke would be produced from the north-east of England.
