Nissan invests £400m in UK car plant despite Brexit warning Japanese group prepares to build Qashqai model at Sunderland site despite EU tariff threat. Car production has fallen for the fifth month in a row amid weak demand in the UK, new figures reveal. Production for the UK fell by almost a quarter in January compared with a year ago, although exports increased by 4.1%, said the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Peter Campbell, Motor Industry Correspondent, in London yesterday Nissan is investing £400m in its Sunderland car plant in preparation to build future models at the site, despite the company’s warnings that tariffs after Brexit will endanger the facility’s exports. On Friday the Japanese carmaker unveiled a new £52m press line, which it has installed ahead of building a new version of the Qashqai, the family sport utility vehicle that accounts for two-thirds of the site’s output. Despite pledging in late 2016 to make the next Qashqai model in the UK, the company has never before detailed its investments in the site for the new model, which is expected to begin production around the end of this year. The majority of the £400m investment, which is supported by an £11m government grant, has already been spent, people familiar with the situation say. Installation of the press line began 18 months ago, the company said on Friday. The spending comes despite Nissan repeatedly warning that tariffs with Europe will “jeopardise” the business model that involves exporting 70 per cent of the vehicles made at the site to the EU. Britain is negotiating a free trade deal with Europe, but may leave the bloc at the end of 2020 without a trading agreement, leading to tariffs and border checks if negotiations fail. The FT reported this year that one post-Brexit scenario previously drawn up by Nissan includes plans to stop selling cars to Europe and focus on growing its UK sales to support the continued existence of the plant, which is one of the company’s international crown jewels. The site, first opened in the 1980s as a European export base, employs about 6,000 staff, and has suffered output falls from 510,000 vehicles in 2016 to 347,000 last year as sales slow and demand falls for diesel. On Friday Ashwani Gupta, Nissan’s chief operating officer, said that the UK site “continues to set the benchmark for productivity and quality”. Nissan’s investment confirmation is a boon for the struggling UK car industry, which has suffered a steep fall in spending and a spate of plant closures in the years since the vote to leave the EU took place in 2016. Ford has closed its Bridgend engine facility and Honda announced the closure of its Swindon site, while Nissan has axed plans for another future model — the X-Trail — from the Sunderland facility. New car production in the UK last year fell to the lowest level in almost a decade, falling 14 per cent to 1.3m. Spending on new projects in the sector has fallen to £1.1bn last year, compared with an average yearly spend of £2.75bn, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Nissan invested £100m last year to begin producing the new Juke model, a smaller car, at the site and has pledged to spend £1bn over five years at the plant. https://www.ft.com/content/fe88eec2-5f9e-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4
You, quite clearly, haven't read the article because it states "The majority of the £400m investment, which is supported by an £11m government grant, has already been spent". However, given that it contains quotes, from senior Nissan personnel (made only yesterday) I thought it would be of interest to those who are employed at the plant, have friends/relatives who are, or just care about the economic situation in Sunderland. Not everyone can be as clearly 'up to date' as your good self!
None of this can be right. We have it from such wise and far seeing people as our local MP's that if we, the common uneducated stupid, voters of Sunderland, along with the rest of The UK elected to leave the EU this cataclysmic act of foolishness would trigger, as far as Sunderland is concerned, the closedown of the Nissan Plant. I believed them because they are our elected representatives therefore honest, truthful and wise. If, and it's most unlikely, they were wrong these most upright of citizens would by now have apologised for misleading us. Wouldn't they? To paraphrase Mr Chamberlain, 'no such apology has been received'. So 'none of this can be right'. PS. If any of the ladies get to read this, never fear. I didn't believe you in the first place and your being wrong will make no difference at all to my future voting intentions.
And Nissan have once again stated that a no deal Brexit may mean that this plant is not viable and could result in them pulling out..
They’re fibbing, I believe that much is obvious. They wouldn’t keep investing millions of pounds into a facility that they thought was even possibly going under.
Most will be equipment that can be transferred and can't see any reason why they would fib.. Hopefully both sides see sense and a deal can be brokered..
The difference is the workforce. Moving the stuff to other less efficient plants would not make sense. The only slight problem down the years is that the Sunderland plant is an ageing plant. Unless some unrealistic tariffs are put in place by stupid governments this plant is going nowhere soon.
Nissan have got a history of fibbing and chucking their toys out the pram to get government incentives to keep them here. I never believed for a second during the Brexit negotiations that Nissan were seriously looking at other countries to take over the Sunderland production. They’re putting pressure on to avoid tariffs and have been since the day we voted to leave. They’re in a perfect position to renegotiate everything and put them in a stronger position. It does look like they’ll be closing the plant in Barcelona which has been declining for years and if tariffs are put into vehicles, Nissan already have their cars here and will steal an advantage on the competition of cars being imported from the likes of France and Germany which will then be more expensive. Sunderland is a major player for them right now for so many reasons. If anything they’ll expand it not close it.
Europe won't want to impose too high a tariff on the UK as from memory the UK accounts for about 25% of all european car sales. The Jormans won't want to lose that many sales.
Germany is struggling and their economy could be rocked to the core by this. It would potentially cost hundreds of thousands of German workers their jobs. I’m convinced a deal will be reached with the EU and it will favour ourselves. We hold a lot of the aces and fishing waters is another cracker we’ve got up our sleeves.
I don't claim any expertise in the Motor Industry. I do though TRY to keep up with current affairs. Bearing that in mind lets consider the following. Honda and Toyota both said that they would be reducing or closing their UK factories, whether we left the EU or not in view of the new trade deal agreed with Japan. There was no longer any economic benefit in building their cars in Europe. In effect they would return the jobs back to where they came from. Nisan though are closely tied to Renault, and it is regularly reported that Sunderland is their most efficient plant, worldwide. They have also announced a plan where they could ignore Europe as far as their UK output was concerned. They will no doubt take advantage of the EU - Japan agreement for the rest of their range and take the hit, if any on the single, (or will it be two) UK model(s). Meanwhile they can look to see what new benefits accrue for them when The UK starts to negotiate with the rest of the World. As has been said from the outset, Nissan showed themselves to be very very good at screwing subsidies out of UK Governments and they were early visitors to The Treasury following The Referendum when it was reported that they left with a deal in their pockets to cover a 'no deal Brexit'. The thought though of trading off fishing rights may be a no-starter though. It's a tiny part of the UK economy, but it's high profile and promises (only political promises I grant you) have been made to The Fishing Industry and are going to be difficult to break. The French are already hinting at blockades of their ports and boycotts of British goods, but of course by no means every EU Country has a fishing fleet. Do you think that it ever occurs to the arrogant EU Mandarins that if they had just given away a little to David Cameron when he asked them for help, we would probably, as a Nation, have voted to stay. I can only speak for myself, but the way that they, in effect, told the British PM to go away and not bother them rather got up my nose. There were other reasons why I wanted out, but this didn't help me to reconsider.
The irony of "taking back control" is that Nissan will do what is in Nissan's best interests, and the EU will do what is in the EU's best interests. We have absolutely no say in either matter.
Yeah, this was a wider issue than Nissan that we voted on. And we’ll do what’s in our interests. What’s your point Thankfully Nissan is choosing UK rather than EU
Agreed. If they don't get what they want initially, they will just demand government grants to cover the costs. They are in a very strong negotiating position and are playing their hand very well. Either way, they will win out and will remain in Sunderland and continue to invest heavily.
We do the most "trading" with Europe as it close to us, imports and exports. The best we could hope for is they impose the same tariffs we do, which would be exactly the same as being in the EU. Trading with Australia, Canada and the USA? Shipping costs alone will add to the price of goods even when we set up agreements after years of negotiation.
