Nissan’s UK output to top 600,000

Nissan’s manufacturing plant in Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, has capacity to build over 600,000 vehicles, according to Trevor Mann, executive director of Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK, speaking today.

It is exactly 30 years since the agreement was signed by the Japanese vehicle builder and the UK Government to build the plant in the UK which has since become the biggest vehicle manufacturing plant in the country.

Last year the plant produced over 500,000 vehicles and has capacity to raise this by one-fifth.

The company employs over 6,500 people and this will to rise to over 7,000. The facility in Sunderland builds vehicles and engines.

A new Nissan model rolls off the production line today. The new vehicle, the second generation Qashqai, has helped create 500 new jobs at the Japanese car giant's UK plant in the coming months.

With this and other new models expected to be awarded to the UK plant, which is one of the jewels in Nissan’s worldwide manufacturing crown, will edge employment eventually to near the 8,000 mark.

Some 286,000 Qashqai cars were built last year, with production numbers expected to be similar in 2014. The car is Nissan's best-selling model in Europe.

Engineers at the Sunderland plant work closely with their counterparts at Nissan’s European Technical Centre (NETC) at Cranfield, Bedfordshire.

Eighty per cent of the output of the Sunderland plant is exported. ∎

Nissan short of 60 engineers

Japanese car maker Nissan is seeking 60 engineers to work at it Nissan European Technical centre (NETC) Cranfield, Bedfordshire, according to a senior manager.

Nissan’s site in Cranfield employs about 1,000 people creating vehicle designs for the world market but claims to need engineers to fill a big skills gap.

David Moss, vice president of vehicle research and development at Nissan, said the company is about 60 engineers short, but is particularly short of electronic engineers. Cars are becoming more and more electronics based and the lack of local skills is a threat to the company.

Nissan Etherea set for UK

Nissan is investing £250 million in manufacturing facilities at its site in Washington, Sunderland, to build the new Infiniti Etherea hatchback from next year.

The project will create an extra 1,000 jobs in the UK, including some 280 in the North-East. The Etherea is seen by Nissan as competition for the Audi A3 and the BMW 1-Series.

Etherea will be manufactured only in Sunderland and production, when it gathers momentum, is expected to hit at least 60,000 a year. Additional contributions will come from Nissan’s London design centre as well as the Nissan European Technical Centre (NETC) at Cranfield, Bedfordshire, which also handles design work as well as component and vehicle development.

Nissan’s Infiniti ‘luxury’ brand is the equivalent of Toyota’s Lexus.