NISSAN is planning to increase Qashqai capacity to enhance its position as the best-selling crossover in Europe.
The manufacturer still cannot keep pace with the continued growth of the crossover market it created with Qashqai, despite record volumes of 300,000 cars being produced every year on line one at the company’s Sunderland plant.
Now Nissan engineers are preparing to uncork supply to European customers by modifying line two in Sunderland to introduce additional Qashqai production. The decision represents a further investment of £22million in the factory.
The first additional vehicles are scheduled for production before the end of this year.
Colin Lawther, Nissan’s senior vice president for manufacturing, purchasing and supply chain management in Europe, said: ‘This additional capacity will give us free supply of Qashqai for the first time.’
Nissan currently manufactures the C-segment Qashqai and the all-electric Nissan Leaf, the world’s best-selling electric vehicle, on line one in Sunderland, which operates on a three-shift basis. Line two production currently includes the Nissan Juke B-segment crossover, Nissan Note and Infiniti Q30 premium compact, and will continue to operate on a two-shift basis.
Nissan is this year celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Sunderland facility, which has grown to become the largest UK car plant of all-time, supporting nearly 40,000 UK jobs and manufacturing one in three of all cars made in Britain.
Thanks to Nissan’s UK-based design and technical centres, vehicles like Qashqai are designed, engineered and manufactured in the UK and exported from Sunderland to over 130 markets.
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