Nissan Sunderland hits production landmark | Industry - Car News Jun 2019

15:57 Monday 24 Jun 2019

The workforce at Nissan’s Sunderland Plant are celebrating after the ten millionth vehicle rolled off the production line this week.

“Building ten million vehicles is a tremendous achievement for everyone associated with the plant”, said Nissan Sunderland Plant Vice-President, Steve Marsh.

“Reaching this huge figure has called on all the ingenuity, commitment and spirit of our highly skilled workforce, many of who hail from the North East of England”, he added.

The plant opened in 1986, which means it has produced a new car every two minutes on average. If all ten million Nissan’s to emerge from Sunderland over the past 33 years were parked nose-to-tail they would stretch all the way around the equator.

The Nissan Qashqai accounts for just over a third of that total, and appropriately it was a Qashqai that was the landmark ten millionth model. The Sunderland Plant also produces the Juke and all-electric LEAF models.

It’s a far cry from the first year of operation, where a 470-strong workforce produced just over 5,000 Nissan Bluebird models. The workforce today numbers around 7,000 and produces just shy of half-a-million units a year.