Brexit Boost: Nissan Backs Britain, Invests £400m in Sunderland Car Factory

The Nissan Motor Company has announced that it will be doubling down on its investments in the United Kingdom, bucking predictions by anti-Brexiteers that the British car industry would crumble after Brexit.

As a part of a £1 billion investment scheme at its British factory in Sunderland, Nissan announced that it has already invested £400 million to produce the next generation of its Qashqai compact crossover SUV in post-Brexit Britain.

The Japanese auto-giant has installed a gigantic press to stamp out vehicle pannels for the new Qashqai. The press, which was tailor-made to produce the SUV, took 18 months to install and cost an estimated £52 million, according to The Telegraph.

The new line of Qashqai SUVs is set to hit the market by 2021 and since a typical run of a model lasts for approximately five years, the 6,000 employees at the Sunderland factory will have relatively good job security until at least 2026.

At the unveiling of the new production press, Ashwani Gupta, chief operating officer, said: “Designed, engineered and made in the UK, and more than three million vehicles later, it remains the benchmark, just as our team in the UK continues to set the standard for productivity and quality.”

In February, it was rumoured that Nissan would pull out of Continental Europe to focus on the British market, should Britain and the European Union fail to reach a trade agreement by the end of the year.

If the United Kingdom leaves without a trade deal, carmakers such as Volkswagen and Ford would face import tariffs on cars sold in Britain, thereby giving companies with British production facilities, like Nissan, a competitive edge.

The plan, according to two insiders at the company, vould enable the company to grow from four per cent of the market share to over twenty.

Nissan denied that such a contingency plan exists, however, telling the Financial Times: ”We continue to urge UK and EU negotiators to work collaboratively towards an orderly balanced Brexit that will continue to encourage mutually beneficial trade.”

The statement by Nissan in February led some to believe that its factory in Sunderland could be in jeopardy in the event of a no-deal Brexit, but with the latest round of investments the company has to date spent over £4 billion at the site, and the factory remains the company’s most efficient outside of Japan.

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