Nissan has announced the latest stage of a £1 billion investment programme in its Sunderland production facility in preparation for building the next-generation Nissan Qashqai there.
This is a £52 million press to stamp panels for the third-generation crossover, which is expected to launch early next year. It brings the total investment in production of the new Qashqai to £400m, in anticipation of it retaining its status as one of the UK's best-selling cars.
The new press weighs a staggering 2000 tonnes and took 18 months to install. It's capable of producing 6.1 million vehicle panels each year, including for the latest Nissan Juke, and has the ability to separate and process scrap metal.
Today's announcement appears – initially, at least – to counter previous reports that Nissan would consider closing the factory if the UK leaves the European Union without a firm trade deal in place.
Nissan Sunderland was given assurances and financial assistance in 2016 from then-prime minister Theresa May, but the agreement was said to have been contingent on a 'soft' Brexit with a trade deal in place.
Official details of the new Qashqai are scarce, but Autocar understands that it will be revealed towards the end of this year and go on sale at the start of 2021.
Although based on an adapted version of the current model's CMF platform, it's set to make use of a new 'ePower' hybrid system as well as a plug-in hybrid powertrain and regular petrol engines. It's not yet clear if a diesel will also be offered.
Read more:
New 2020 Qashqai key to Nissan's three-pronged SUV assault
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Maybe Nissan is banking on a "no-deal" Brexit.
There was a leaked report that in the event of a so called "no-deal", Nissan would close it's Barcelona plant & just concentrate on the UK & increase it's market share to 20%. That would mean it wouldn't be dependant on sales to the EU. Ford & Vauxhall & the rest would be totally stuffed because their cars imported from expensive Euroland would be even more expensive due to tariffs. Ford recently put it's Cologne plant on a 4 day week because of lack of demand of the Fiesta from the UK, over 30% of production goes to Britain. So after an extremely bad "no-deal", what are you gonna buy, an extremely over priced Fiesta or a 25% cheaper Juke???? No brainer, innit?
The Eu.
Aren’t Eoropean car makers going to have the same problems.?
Agreed
Smart move by Nissan
If EU car manufacturers struggle to sell their cars in the U.K. after Brexit is concluded then the likes of Nissan and Toyota will not only have a captive U.K. market to sell to but will be able to export from the U.K. to places like USA tariff free if trade deals go as expected.
Honda may well end up kicking themselves for their stupidity.
PSA and BMW could also thrive in the U.K. More so If the Euro goes pear shaped.
Interesting times ahead....
Egg on face time
It must have been quite difficult reading for remoaners when PSA said they wanted to invest in the UK the other day, the only saving grace being that it hasn't yet happened.
That new centre JLR recently opened, now that was a bit of a blow for the remoaners, but JLR are not actually manufacturing cars at that site so again, perhaps a sigh of relief.
But Nissan invested £400m to build the new Qashqai? Now that is a body blow.
Can I just remind folk that the remoaners said that if we went ahead with Brexit, that these companies wouldn't invest in the UK? Egg on face time.
PS I note this article doesn't contain any comment from Mike Hawes
PPS For those who suggest the investment is only because the gov. are providing financial assistance. Why do you reckon these companies came to the UK in the first place? It wasn't because they took a fancy to fish and chips.
With an EU trade deal.
You forgot to mention that would only happen if the UK got an EU trade deal.
Quoting from the article:
To that end, Tavares repeated his call for a free trade deal between the EU and UK. "If conditions of trade are positive, and there are no tariffs, then most of the investment would be made by PSA," he said. "We don t want to be a burden and want to bring wealth and value. But it is fair to ask the UK to create the business for this to fly."
Symanski wrote:
Lol dont p*ss on his fireworks by quoting cold hard facts, let him live in cloud cuckoo land, he ll soon have to wake up from his dream world.
No Surprise
Lesson 1 How not to win