TOKYO (June 18, 2007)-Nissan is to invest a further £2.4 million (580 million yen) in its Sunderland plant, to increase QASHQAI production.
The cash injection will help boost QASHQAI volume by the 20% needed to keep pace with customer demand for the compact crossover, launched in February this year.
Since then, more than 60,000 units have rolled off the line, with approximately a further 130,000 forecast before the end of the 2007.
The additional investment will be used to make facility improvements on the QASHQAI line, which is working to fulfil excellent demand for the car right across Europe - the order bank for the European region is now approaching 60,000 units.
QASHQAI, which recently scored a maximum 5-stars in the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) adult occupant safety test, is also proving to be a big hit in Japan, where sales started on May 23rd.
Although Japanese sales were initially targeted at 2,000 units per month, the car - renamed Dualis in Japan - has received more than 7,000 orders until last week.
Sunderland Plant's Deputy Managing Director Kevin Fitzpatrick commented: "QASHQAI is proving extremely popular and will help us achieve a record production year in '07.
"Supporting this level of customer demand is very challenging and our manufacturing employees deserve a lot of credit for how hard they are working, but this is the kind of challenge every car plant should welcome.
"The additional investment from Japan will complement the measures we are introducing here such as moving NOTE production onto our second line in September, to free up capacity for QASHQAI."
- Note to Editors:
- The cash injection brings total investment by Nissan in its Sunderland Plant to £2.38 billion.
- The most recent 2007 volume forecast is 390,000 units.
- The plant's current peak production year was 2003 when 332,000 cars were produced.
* Note: Amount in pounds are translated for the convenience of the reader only at the foreign exchange rate of 244 yen/pound.
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