Production of the all-new Nissan Qashqai has begun at the firm’s manufacturing plant in Sunderland.
Building on the successful reputation of the previous model, the new Qashqai comes with a raft of new features and upgrades.
The Qashqai is now available with ProPilot autonomous driving technology, which will take control of the steering, acceleration and braking in a single lane of motorway during heavy traffic or at higher speeds.
We’ve upgraded Europe’s best-selling crossover. The new #NissanQashqai is nearly here. pic.twitter.com/GtpW98aTF0
— NissanUK (@NissanUK) June 27, 2017
This commencement of production follows a £53m investment in Nissan’s UK facilities, including extra production capacity that allows the Qashqai to be built on both lanes at the Sunderland plant.
Colin Lawther, Nissan’s senior vice president for manufacturing, purchasing and supply chain management in Europe, said: “The Nissan Qashqai is the original urban crossover and remains the undisputed leader in the segment.
“In the decade since Qashqai launched we have built more than 2.8m in Sunderland, taking plant output to record levels. Offering new premium design features and Nissan Intelligent Mobility technologies, this new model marks a new chapter for Qashqai and for our manufacturing operations.”
The Qashqai currently represents almost one in five of all British-made cars, and is Nissan’s most successful model in Europe. Sunderland is the biggest UK car plant of all time, and produced 507,436 vehicles in total last year.
