Visit to Nissan's Sunderland factory (3rd November 2023)

On Friday, November 3rd, Deputy Consul General Minori Ishii visited Nissan's Sunderland factory in northeast England. Opened in 1986, the plant is the UK's largest car production site by production volume, employing around 6,000 people and supporting an additional 30,000 UK jobs across Nissan's supply chain. Last summer, the Qashqai e-POWER and Duke hybrids were produced in Sunderland and, along with the 100% all-electric Nissan Leaf, all models manufactured at the factory were electric. The Sunderland plant is also working to achieve zero-emission electric vehicle (EV) production through its “EV36Zero” project, which consists of three key elements: a new generation of EVs, a new AESC gigafactory adjacent to the plant that will produce 12 GWh worth of on-board batteries, and a microgrid that will provide 100% renewable electricity to Nissan and its suppliers, in addition to Nissan's existing wind and solar power facilities.

In addition, the plant aims to be an "open factory" which values contact and dialogue with local residents, and is loved and trusted by them. They welcome school visits, providing tours of the plant every week and have already welcomed about 80,000 students so far.