Renault to make next-gen Nissan Micra in Europe in 2016, Alliance plant in India will produce both current and new model

Yokohama, Japan, April 30, 2013: Nissan Motor Co has, earlier this week, announced that the replacement for the current Nissan Micra compact car will be manufactured at Renault’s Flins plant in France.
Due to start production in 2016, the vehicle will be exported across Europe’s left-hand-drive (LHD) markets. Under the Nissan Power 88 six-year business plan, the company will launch, on average, one new model every six weeks for the duration of the plan. Consequently, available capacity across the relevant plants in the Nissan manufacturing network is already planned to be fully utilised and led the company to look at alternatives within the Renault-Nissan Alliance. The decision to produce the car at one of its European plants benefits Nissan in many ways including capital expense reduction, foreign exchange exposure reduction and working capital reduction through shorter supply chains.

Commenting on the plan, Trevor Mann, chairman of the Management Committee, Nissan Europe, said: “Nissan is pleased to leverage the economic and logistical benefits of sourcing the next-generation Micra at a forecasted annual volume of 82,000 units from a Renault plant in Europe. Nissan already sources powertrain from the Cleon facility and the NV400 light commercial vehicle from the Batilly plant.” Driven by sales and share expansion across Europe and Russia, Nissan’s manufacturing capacity in Europe and India (which is the current source for the Micra) will be fully utilised in the mid-term period.

India plant to make both models
The Nissan Micra, also sold under the March name in certain markets, is one of the company’s longstanding products. Consistent with Nissan’s optimised global sourcing strategy, the Renault-Nissan Alliance plant in Chennai (RNAIPL) will continue to produce both the current Micra model, and the next Micra from 2016 in RHD form and also LHD for some markets. Additionally, consistent with Nissan’s plans to introduce 10 new models in India during its mid- term business plan period, and plans beyond that, Chennai will continue ramping up to run at full production capacity as previously stated.