Nissan Europe on Wednesday said it would increase Qashqai capacity at its Sunderland, north-east England factory and “further enhance its position as the best-selling crossover in Europe” following “a decade of unprecedented customer demand”.
In a statement, the automaker said: “Nissan still cannot keep pace with the continued growth of the crossover market it created with Qashqai despite record volumes of 300,000 cars every year” on Line 1, round-the-clock production and a build rate of one car per minute.
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The company would “uncork supply to its European customers by modifying Line 2” to add additional production, at a cost of GBP22m (EUR29m).
The first additional vehicles are scheduled off-line before the end of this year, ahead of the next phase in the model line’s development in 2017 when it becomes the first Nissan Europe model with autonomous ‘Piloted Drive’ technology. The plant began building the current generation Qashqai in January, 2014.
Colin Lawther, who heads manufacturing, purchasing and supply chain management for Nissan Europe, said: “Through innovative engineering and productivity improvements, my colleagues in Sunderland have broken production records to keep pace with demand but our new generation Qashqai has reached a tipping point.
“This additional capacity will give us free supply for the first time, ahead of the launch of a refreshed [model line] equipped with Piloted Drive technology from next year.”
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By GlobalDataNissan currently manufactures the Qashqai and Leaf EV on Line 1 which operates three shifts. Line 2 production currently includes the Juke, Note and the recently introduced Q30 (the first English-made Infiniti), and will continue to operate two shifts.
Nissan said all production areas of Line 2 at Sunderland – body welding, paint and final assembly – require modification ahead of adding the Qashqai but both production lines then will be capable of building vehicles based on the Renault-Nissan Alliance Common Module Family CMF-C architecture. Line 2 will additionally have CMF-B capability following the introduction of the next- generation Juke which, according to just-auto‘s Product Lifecycle Database (PLDB), will be in 2017, running through to 2024. We also expect the new generation models to be offered with a powertrain similar to that in the Chevrolet Volt, which Nissan intends to call Pure Drive e-Power. This means drive will be to the front wheels via an electric motor with a back-up combustion engine.
Nissan is this year celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Sunderland facility, which started building a Bluebird-badged version of the Stanza in 1986, and is now the largest UK car plant supporting about 40,000 UK jobs and manufacturing one in three of all cars made in Britain. Earlier this month, Nissan announced Sunderland had made more Qashqais crossovers than any other car at Sunderland with output exceeding the previous highest single-nameplate tally of 2,368,704 units achieved by the (now imported from Thailand) Micra supermini. By the end of February, Qashqai output had passed 2,398,134 units. No other car in the history of the UK car industry has gone beyond 2m units in such a short period of time, Nissan claimed.
UK-built Nissans are largely designed and engineered in the UK and exported to around 130 countries.
The Qashqai is also manufactured or assembled in St Petersburg, Russia, and in the Dongfeng-Nissan joint venture’s Huadu plant in China.
