Nissan plans to build new model in North East
Nissan’s latest compact car, the Nissan Invitation, will be built in Sunderland from 2013 at an initial rate of 100,000 per year. But what does this mean for the area?
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Readers' comments (4)
Good news for jobs and the economy. Another success for regional development agency ONE North East. Sadly though ONE North East will be closed due to government policy from 31st March 2012.
Whilst this is good news for the locality like all foreign car manufacturers with production assembly facilities in the UK most of the components are generally shipped in from abroad.
Although there may be not sure if still applicable a requirement for 'local' content this is usually fudged with the low tech product being sourced in the Uk and the more high tech imported aka Toyota who suffered when the Tsunami hit Japan and had to reduce output because all the high tech electronics for the car were shipped in from Japan. So whilst it is good for the area, not sure about UK manufacturing in general.
There will be a large local content of components for this car, engines, gearboxes and most other mechanical components will be built at Nissan. Toyota are less committed than Nissan to the UK, also, there are many critical components which could halt production if the supply is hit by unforseen circumstances. Building any high value products here in the UK has to be good news, the major part of the value is in the workforce's salaries.
Is this not just replacement volume for the Leaf which, let's be honest ,is never going to sell in any volume.