Car giant has unveiled new £52m line at plant

A new £52m line has been unveiled at the Nissan plant in Sunderland as the firm gears up to build the new Qashqai.

The £52m XL press line is part of a £400m investment in the Sunderland manufacturing plant and comes amid a period of uncertainty over the future of the plant after Brexit.

In January the car manufacturing giant repeated calls for clarity over UK deal with EU after Brexit and urged UK and EU negotiators to "work collaboratively towards an orderly balanced Brexit that will continue to encourage mutually beneficial trade".

Nissan employs 7,000 people at its factory in Sunderland, which opened in 1986, and is the second-largest producer of cars in the UK behind Jaguar Land Rover.

Qashqais have been built at the Sunderland plant since 2006 and the factory has built the Jukes on Wearside for 10 years this month.

The new machinery was unveiled in an official ceremony, led by Nissan Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta, who said the company's UK staff "continues to set the standard for productivity and quality".

The £52m investment in the new press includes a new recycling system, and upgrades to the existing sheet metal line.

The 2,000 tonne plant is capable of stamping more than 6.1million vehicle panels a year, with a maximum combined force of 5,400 tonnes.

March 2020 marks the tenth anniversary of the first Juke to roll off the line in Sunderland, when its daring styling broke the mould in the B-segment.

And the all-new version has been made exclusively in Sunderland since October last year.