It has been churning out cars at a pace that was hard to fathom. But now Nissan's Qashqai factory in Sunderland is to be cut by 50 percent to save money.
Nissan is reducing production at its Sunderland factory in England to save money. Half of the brand's production capacity will be removed as one of two shifts is stopped.
This is part of a larger, global savings plan that was announced at the same time that Nissan made it clear that it could run out of money within a year.
The economic situation is now affecting one of their popular models, the Qashqai. Production of the model is being cut significantly. Previously, production in Sunderland was based on two shifts every single day. Now it is reduced to a single shift.
This is what the Dutch edition of Top Gear writes.
The night shift at the factory has been abolished. The cut in production highlights the challenges Nissan faces. At the same time, management must deal with the fact that a merger with Honda has fallen through due to fundamental disagreements. Read more about it here.
In Denmark, Qashqai has been one of the best-selling cars ever. However, sales have fallen. Previous generations of Qashqai experienced higher sales figures. Nissan's electric car, Ariya, has not been able to compensate for the loss. Last year, 234 copies of Ariya were sold in Denmark.
In fact, sales of the Qashqai were better, while sales of the electric car Leaf are almost dead. However, this may be because the Danish importer has withdrawn the car from the market. And that there may now only be stock cars left.
Nissan was one of the first car brands to seriously embrace electric cars. And even though the Leaf was among the first, the Japanese have not been able to keep up with the pace since.
Competitors have further developed the segment, while Nissan is struggling with financial problems. It is unknown whether the company can reverse the negative development.
Nissan has already announced that 9,000 positions will be cut. And that the CEO, Makoto Uchida, is voluntarily giving up half of his own salary.
However, Nissan still has to deal with the fact that it is leaving the alliance with Renault, something that saved the Japanese from imminent bankruptcy in the late 1990s.
To make matters worse, the plan for a merger with Honda has come to nothing. Honda boss Toshihiro Mibe reportedly demanded that Uchida resign and that Nissan become a subsidiary of Honda before negotiations could even proceed.
Nissan is not the only one with financial troubles. Volkswagen is also under a lot of pressure. For the first time ever in the brand's history, factories in Germany are to be closed.
And sister brand Audi closed its only factory in Belgium in February. Skoda has just announced that it will cut 8,000 jobs due to high costs for electric cars.
In comparison, Audi's farewell to Belgium cost around 3,000 jobs. Jobs that the country's government could not save, even though both employees and ministers tried to persuade the Germans to change their minds.
