Nissan to expand global Qashqai production

Nissan has announced that it will expand the production of its popular QASHQAI/Dualis mid-size crossover, adding new capacity at the Kyushu plant in Japan to meet high local demand and freeing up more capacity at its Sunderland plant in the UK for European sales. Production of the Dualis (Japan market name) is expected to begin in early 2008 with production to reach 24,000 units per year.

Global sales of the QASHQAI/Dualis have outperformed initial projections since its European debut in February and launch in Japan in May. To-date, sales of Dualis in Japan have reached 9,466 units while sales in Europe of QASHQAI are at 58,051 units.

The addition of the capacity in Kyushu will allow the Sunderland plant to better meet the demand coming from the European market. In June, Nissan announced a further £2.4 million (580 million yen) investment into the Sunderland plant to increase QASHQAI production. Together with the additional global volume in Japan, this investment will help reduce the waiting time for a new QASHQAI across Europe.