We’ve had good news from Nissan. The company has said that production of the Infiniti is set to start in Sunderland 2015.
Great news for UK’s economy
At the moment, the production of the luxury Infiniti brand is almost exclusively based in Japan. However, the Japanese car maker Nissan has announced that t new Infiniti will be built at Nissan’s Sunderland, UK, from 2015 with plans to develop further. The automaker will be investing somewhere in the region of 25 million pounds in its Sunderland plant and the production of its premium Infiniti brand.
This announcement from Nissan has also coincided with news that the new Golf won’t be built at the Sunderland factory. This isn’t bad news, because the move will mean that a total of 1,000 jobs should be created in the UK. The Japanese company estimates that we can expect to see 280 new jobs at the Sunderland plant. The supply chain will make up the remainder of the new employment opportunities.
Audi and Lexus watch out! Nissan aims to capture its share of Europe’s premium hatchback market
The new premium hatchback from Nissan is to be based on the MFA platform, just like the one for the new Mercedes A-Class. It’s likely that the engine for the new hatchback will borrow from the Mercedes A-Class too. The look has been inspired by the 2011 Etherea concept. This should help capture some of the premium hatchback market. It is presently dominated by the Audi A3, Lexus CT200h and the BMW1 series.
This announcement by the Japanese car maker follows news that the approximately 510,000 cars at will have been manufactured at its Nissan plant in 2012. These figures cover the company’s Juke, Qashqai+2 and Qashqai, and this is something of an industry record. It’s likely that the next generation of the Quashqai and Nissan Leaf will also be built at the Sunderland plant. Nissan estimates that the plant will be capable of producing 60,000 units for its new Etherea each model year. In fact, the Sunderland plant is currently Europe’s most productive.
UK automarket resists the slump – in spite of troubled Eurozone
Britain has had a lucky escape from the current European auto industry slump. With its largely foreign owned auto industry remaining surprisingly buoyant and resilient. This is in spite of the fact that the car market in the rest of Europe is facing a 20 year low in the shadow of the euro zone crisis. So, for the UK, this news from Nissan is a definite bonus. Our domestic auto industry is attracting investment from abroad, even if our other industries aren’t faring quite so well.
Nissan is optimistic about the future. The automaker expects the overall global market for premium cars to grow by 8 percent over the next twelve months. It says demand in the US will offset flat sales in Europe’s floundering market.