The closure of Nissan plant in Barcelona is postponed until December 2021
- Scheduled to be permanently closed in December 2020, the Nissan Barcelona plant, which produces Nissan Navara pick-ups and NV200 electrically powered vans, has been granted a one more year activity, its closure having been postponed to December 2021. This rescheduling has nothing to do with the coronavirus crisis, as the official explanation of the carmaker is that it had decided to give more time to the employees and suppliers of the plant to prepare the end of production and to have more time to look for alternative solutions.
- In fact, the Nissan Navara and NV200 continue to sell (modestly) in the European market: 6,895 and 7,001 units respectively on the cumulative 9 months 2020, against 13,611 and 12,529 units in 2019 and 16,609 and 14,573 units. in 2018. The Nissan Pulsar disappeared from assembly lines in 2018, while the Mercedes X-Class and Renault Alaskan pick-ups have just been withdrawn from the production program, as demand for these two models was deemed too low.
- The production at the Barcelona plant has plunged over the past thirteen years, dropping from 200,000 units in 2007 to 150,000 units in 2015 and then 30,000 units in 2020. It is no longer viable to operate a plant with a capacity of 170,000 vehicles per year with such a low production volume.
- The Barcelona plant could have replaced Sunderland (UK) plant, threatened in the event of a no-deal Brexit, but this solution was not chosen by Nissan. Consequently, in this increasingly probable perspective, Nissan has no longer any alternative for producing vehicles in large volumes on the European continent.
Contact us: info@inovev.com