Nissan invests £400m despite warning

 

Nissan is investing £400m in its Sunderland plant, despite warnings from the Japanese carmaker that tariffs after Brexit might endanger the facility’s exports.

The company said a new £52m press line, has been installed ahead of building a revised version of the Qashqai, the family sport-utility vehicle that accounts for two-thirds of the site’s output. The tariffs with Europe after Brexit would jeopardise a business model in which 70 per cent of the site’s vehicle is exported to the EU.

The £400m  investment is supported by an £11m government grant, which has already been spent, as installation of the press line began 18 months ago.

The Sunderland site which first opened in the 1980s as a European export base, employs 6, 000 staff and has suffered output falls from 510, vehicles in 2016 to 347, 000 in 2019.

Ashwani Gupta Nissan’s CEO said that “the UK site continues to set a benchmark for productivity and quality.”

New car production in the UK last year fell to the lowest level in a decade falling 14 per cent to 1.3m.