Recently, JOE’s Oisin Collins was invited over to the UK to see the all-new Nissan Qashqai being built at the company’s manufacturing plant in Sunderland, where one car rolls off the assembly line every 61 seconds.
By the time it takes you to read this article, a brand new Nissan Qashqai will have rolled off the floor at the company’s Sunderland plant ready to be shipped out to a dealer somewhere in the world.
That’s because the Nissan manufacturing plant in Sunderland can (and does) produce a brand new Qashqai every minute. It really is quite amazing and it equates to roughly 1415 cars rolling off the floor in one 24-hour shift. The same plant also produces the all-electric Nissan Leaf, so there is a lot going on at any given time.
Our tour began with a brief round-table press conference with some of the most powerful names in Nissan, including Executive Vice President and Chairman of MC AMIE, Trevor Mann, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Guillaume Cartier, Managing Director of Nissan Manufacturing UK, Kevin Fitzpatrick and the Senior Vice President of Manufacturing and Supply Chain, Colin Lawther.
It was clear that the heads of Nissan UK are extremely proud of their plant in Sunderland, which now employs over 7,000 people in a variety of different positions. Last year, the plant hired 1,400 new staff with roughly 60 per cent of those being hired just to work on the Qashqai, which isn’t too surprising seeing as the crossover is now undoubtedly the face of the brand.
Speaking about the Qashqai in general, Mr Mann said, “The Qashqai has propelled the Nissan brand in Europe to a new level and it has helped our plant in Sunderland to set new standards in productivity and quality.”
Following the press conference, we were brought into the plant to see the construction of the Qashqai and the all-electric Leaf. More than 500,000 cars were built at the Sunderland plant last year, for the second year in a row, and according to Kevin Fitzpatrick, Nissan still can’t keep up with the demand for the Qashqai – or Cash-cow as some journalists joked.
The following video was presented to us during the presentation and it gives a good insight into just how well the Sunderland plant is doing thanks to the Qashqai.
The workers at the plant are under quite a lot of pressure to perform, due to the fact that one tiny mistake on one single car could cease production on the entire line until the error is rectified, so there really is no time for second chances. In fairness to the workers, it looked like they were capable of doing the job in their sleep and it was obvious on the day that a lot of care and attention went into making sure the freshly built cars were up to standard.
The last generation of Qashqai sold 2944 units in Ireland back in 2013, making it the best selling car in the crossover C-segment and Nissan Ireland are hoping to continue on with that success, which seems pretty likely given the reception that the new generation has enjoyed over the past month or so.
The all-new Qashqai will arrive in Irish showrooms over the coming month with prices starting at €24,495 for the entry-level 1.2L petrol XE, or from €269 on Nissan’s ‘Nissan Go’ finance deal. Full details on prices are below and we’ll have our first-drive review on the site later this week, but until then check out the images from the factory in the gallery above.
For more check out Nissan.ie
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