Nissan will substantially increase production of vehicles built and sold in North America as a hedge against the strength of the yen.
Carla Bailo, senior vice president of research and development for Nissan Americas, said that, by 2015, 85% of the Nissan and Infiniti models sold in the US will be made there, up from about 67%.
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Nissan is market leader in Mexico with a 25% share and last year took a record 8.2% share of the US market. In Brazil, the company’s market share surged to 25%.
Its investments in the Americas and Brazil total US$5.2bn and Bailo said: “We need to mitigate the effect of the yen and increase capacity across North America.”
Toyota and Honda have also outlined plans to increase production and vehicle development in North America to both hedge against the strong yen, that drives up the cost of building vehicles in Japan, and ensure vehicles meet the needs of North American buyers.
Nissan has plants in Smyrna, Tennessee, and Canton, Mississippi. It is expanding the Smyrna plant to start making the Leaf in December as well as 200,000 lithium-ion battery packs a year from September.
The company’s Decherd powertrain factory in Tennessee is adding 90 jobs later this year to make electric motors for the Leaf while a partnership with Daimler will produce 250,000 engines a year for both automakers there in 2014, creating up to 400 jobs.
Nissan plans to transfer production of the Rogue from Japan to Smyrna in 2013 while Canton is adding 1,000 jobs to make body on frame trucks as well as cars including the new Sentra. Total Mississippi employment will reach 4,500.
The Japanese carmaker has two assembly plants in Mexico and is spending $2bn to build a third in Aguascalientos, which will add 3,000 jobs to assemble 175,000 subcompact cars in late 2013.
Nissan’s Farmington Hills research facility in Michigan is adding 150 new jobs to support vehicle engineering and development.
