Nissan opens R&D test centre in Thailand

Nissan today inaugurated the Nissan Motor Asia Pacific (NMAP) R&D Test Centre in Thailand.

The new test centre will be the main R&D hub for ASEAN to better address customer needs in the region and to align more quickly to market requirements.

The scope will be enlarged from the current quality assurance for product launches to the upstream product development phase of evaluation tests for trial prototypes. NMAP R&D test centre will primarily service the five ASEAN countries of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. The facility also will provide testing for more than 90 countries around the world.

Thailand has been a strategic market for Nissan in the Asia-Pacific region since the establishment of the R&D centre in 2003. NMAP today boasts an R&D centre with industry-first testing facilities in Thailand: the anechoic chamber, acoustic chamber and vibration simulator with environment chamber. An additional investment of more than 1 billion Thai baht has been made to this 6,600 square metre facility. By the end of fiscal year 2016, a total of 330 staff will be employed, with local engineers trained in Japan to attain professional skillsets in order to operate the testing facilities.

A total of 12 models will be tested at NMAP, including Nissan's core model Navara, the bestselling eco car Almera and the X-Trail Hybrid.