Nissan will build 3 models of electric cars at its plant in England

Nissan said on Friday it would invest an additional 1.1 billion pounds (about $1.4 billion) to make three new electric models at its plant in Sunderland, northeast England.

The announcement, which included plans for an additional battery plant, appears to go a long way to ensuring that a major car manufacturing industry continues in Britain for the next decade or more.

Until recently that was not assured. Brexit, which has made trade with the European Union more cumbersome, and the global shift towards electric cars had raised fears that the British vehicle manufacturing industry was facing an existential crisis. British car production has fallen by around 50 per cent in the last six years.

“I think it’s a very important investment,” said Peter Wells, an automotive specialist at Cardiff Business School.

As well as the plan to make three electric models in Sunderland, Nissan said it would make its car plant the anchor of a low-emissions industrial complex. The facilities would include a new plant to manufacture electric car batteries, as well as solar and wind farms to generate green electricity for the plants and a power system to connect the facilities. The hope would be to attract additional suppliers, creating many more jobs.

The battery plant would join two others: one currently in operation and another under development, both run by Envision AESC, a subsidiary of a Chinese company associated with Nissan. Envision AESC is expected to build the third plant.

Wells said this idea of ​​creating a green manufacturing hub in the north east of England was key to the announcement. As automakers shift to lower-emission vehicles, they will also want to reduce the carbon footprint of their manufacturing, he said.

“This is the future of this type of operation,” Wells said. “The long-term goal is to achieve zero-carbon manufacturing.”

Nissan’s Sunderland plant produced 238,000 vehicles in 2022, more than any other assembly plant in Britain, although it previously produced half a million vehicles a year. The company announced that it would make electric versions of two mainstream models now produced there, the popular Qashqai and the Juke. Sunderland will also build the next generation of the Leaf, an electric model that has been manufactured at the plant for a decade.

If successful, the plan could help protect the jobs of Nissan’s 7,000 employees in Britain. “Our UK team will design, engineer and manufacture the vehicles of the future,” Makoto Uchida, Nissan’s president and chief executive, told workers at the Sunderland plant on Friday, according to a company statement.

In recent months, carmakers with substantial interests in Britain have agreed to shore up the British industry. Tata, the Indian conglomerate that owns Jaguar Land Rover, previously announced an investment of up to £4 billion in a large battery plant. And in September, BMW said it would invest £600 million to make electric versions of its popular Mini car models in Britain.

At the same time, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s British government has been pressured to provide help to secure jobs in industries such as automotive and steel. On Wednesday, the government announced an additional £2 billion to support zero-emission car manufacturing as part of an overall spending statement.

A Nissan spokesperson declined to reveal the amount of help it would receive from the government, saying discussions were still ongoing.