Nissan will increase production of its Qashqai crossover at its UK production plant in Sunderland.
The second production line at the Nissan Sunderland plant, called Line 2, has been modified so that it can be used to build more Qashqais for customers across Europe.
Additional production line
Currently, the Nissan Sunderland plant can produce one Qashqai a minute, or 300,000 units annually. However, the demand for crossovers and SUVs is so intense across European markets, that Nissan has taken the decision to make even more, at least for a temporary period.
Up until now, Line 2 has been used by Nissan to build the Juke, Note and Infiniti Q30. The modifications will allow this production line to build cars that use the Common Module Family Platform, this is used by the Qashqai and will reportedly be utilised by the next-generation Juke as well.
The news of the Qashqai’s production increase follows the announcement earlier this month that Nissan had built more Qashqais at Sunderland than any other car in Europe.
Qashqai breaks new ground
Since production of the original Qashqai began at Sunderland back in December 2006, Nissan has produced over 2.39 million examples of the car. The crossover has surpassed the previous European production record set by the Nissan Micra.
Nissan also revealed that the Qashqai hit the two million production landmark quicker than any other car in its history. The Nissan Qashqai will receive a range of updates for 2017, including a semi-autonomous driving aid called Piloted Drive 1.0.
