At a meeting today with Prime Minister David Cameron, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Nissan Motor Co., Carlos Ghosn, announced that workers in Britain will design, engineer and build the next version of the company’s Qashqai model.
New model production will safeguard 6,000 jobs, both direct and indirect through the UK supply chain, and represents a significant endorsement of the quality and calibre of UK automotive manufacturing. Each Qashqai produced has 3,779 parts, of which 83.6% come from one of 224 UK suppliers.
“Nissan’s announcement is the latest in a series of positive investment stories for the UK auto industry,” said Paul Everitt, SMMT Chief Executive. “Manufacturing is crucial to the UK’s economic recovery and this decision demonstrates the long-term strength and global competitiveness of our sector.”
The project amounts to a £192 million investment in Britain and is being funded entirely by Nissan. The design, engineering and build of the new car will involve teams at Nissan’s European Design Centre in London, Technical Centre Europe in Cranfield and manufacturing facility in Sunderland.
Nissan’s Sunderland plant will produce its one millionth Qashqai later this month and more than 80% of current production is exported to 97 markets worldwide.
The company is investing an additional £420m in its Sunderland plant for the production of the Nissan LEAF electric car from 2013 and in a new stand-alone facility to make lithium-ion batteries for both Renault and Nissan vehicles from 2012.
