Nissan Invests $2 Billion Into Mexican Plant

by Derek Kreindler

January 25th, 2012 12:01 PM

nissan invests 2 billion into mexican plant

While Honda and Mazda are just getting their respective footholds in Mexico (the two automakers are opening up respective assembly plants in Mexico), Nissan has had a long presence south of the border, building cars at its Augascalientes, Mexico plant for decades.

Nissan is set to build an all-new plant in Augascalientes, with a total investment of $2 billion. The plant will produce B-segment cars (such as the Versa). Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn is on a major push to avoid exporting Japanese-built vehicles due to a strong yen. The Mexican plant will help shore up North American vehicle production, as Nissan’s Smyrna, Tennessee plant will add a range of new vehicles shortly, including the Infiniti JX, the Nissan Rogue and the Nissan Leaf. Greater expansion of the new plant, as well as facilities for suppliers were also in the cards.

With the goal of becoming Latin America’s top Japanese OEM, as well as outselling Honda in the United States, the new plant is crucial to Nissan’s plans. Nissan is hoping to have the factory producing cars in less than 24 months.

#CarlosGhosn #Factory #Mexico #Nissan #NissanLeaf #NissanVersa #Production

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15 comments

Bumpy ii on Jan 25, 2012

Tsuru! Por vu! Sigh, I'd go down there and buy one tomorrow if they could be imported into the US without a ton of hassles. I wonder if a bare shell could get in easier?

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- Brokeguy on Jan 25, 2012
  
  That's a good question, i'd love a bare shell to put my old SR20DE in!
  
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- Cacon on Jan 25, 2012
  
  I must tell you that the currently built Tsuru, is not what it used to be when it was a freshly new car. It has been decontented to the max, the metal sheet is thiner than a can of soda.... and I can go on with all that has been removed/cheapened
  
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- Sammy B on Jan 25, 2012
  
  @brokeguy The guys on sr20forum used to always day dream about this. Take a US titled B13 down there, swap plates, and drive back with a Tsuru. Just hope they don't want to match the VIN with your registration/insurance. Or find some shady auto shop (not hard to find I'm sure) to cut out and reattach your VIN plates. All you really accomplish is getting a fresh shell (which is not insignificant, i know). I want to say there's a sr20 powered model down there too (or there was). GSR? in that case you could buy a newer used B13 SE-R!
  
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- Brokeguy on Jan 25, 2012
  
  @cacon I'd still want one, it's difficult to find an old one that hasn't been crashed or all riced-out and used up.
  
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- Derek Kreindler on Jan 25, 2012
  
  @brokeguy The Tsuru GSR exists. A friend and I toyed with the idea of going down to MX with his Mexican gf and buying one, using Canada's 15 year import waiver to get it in the country. It never happened but I'd still do it. http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w277/tegsr/DSC01644.jpg I recall sport compact car rented one and did a driving impression. Seemed craptacular in the best way.
  
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Geozinger on Jan 25, 2012

Honda already has a Mexican assembly plant. It's in El Salto, MX. The one announced last year is an additional plant. I guess I can understand the need to avoid shipping things from the Yen Zone, but we still have massive overcapacity in North America. The BKs of Chrysler and GM really didn't do a great deal to eliminate that. To me, this just seems like more fuel to the fire that is the overcapacity issue the NA industry as a whole is facing. It seems likely to me that the Japanese would start focusing more attention on Mexico as a place for assembly plants. I wonder how long before the Mexican plants pull work out of US plants, like what happened with the D3? There's only so many plants any company can keep running with a given set of resources.

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- Highdesertcat on Jan 25, 2012
  
  There's more to the logic than avoiding shipping things from the Yen zone. It is just plain economically more advantageous for Nissan, and others, to build in Mexico. This is something that the US automakers realized decades ago when they started building them in Mexico. Now the foreigners and transplants also see the wisdom of investing in Mexico, as opposed to investing in the US, and are going full-throttle to get up to speed. Mazda announced they would also open a new plant in Mexico. It would have been nice if Nissan and others were to expand their operations in America thus creating more jobs for Americans, but with the current US economic policies and tax code, it is just not financially feasible to do so. The name of the game is profitability and making profits is severely punished in America, as is being successful and making lots of money.
  
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- Geozinger on Jan 26, 2012
  
  @highdesertcat So what is the strategy here, then? To build plant after plant all over a continent while chasing some monetary figure? I still don't see the logic in Hyundai, Toyota, or Nissan building plants in the South, particularly when they aren't that far away from facilities in Mexico. And these plants were built after NAFTA was instituted. In the US, you still deal with OSHA, EPA and other regulations the Mexicans don't have. Which leads me to wonder: If the Toyota and Nissan plants in the South are under-utilized, how long until they're no longer economical to run? The D3 have gotten rid of some of their overcapacity, but these folks are only compounding their situation.
  
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- OhioPilot09 on Jan 26, 2012
  
  @highdesertcat "The name of the game is profitability and making profits is severely punished in America, as is being successful and making lots of money." Haha, you wrote that with a straight face??
  
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- Supersleuth on Jan 26, 2012
  
  @highdesertcat The average commenter here has the political and economic awareness of a two year old, and "information" gathered exclusively from Faux News.
  
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- Kenzter on Jan 26, 2012
  
  @highdesertcat "The name of the game is profitability and making profits is severely punished in America, as is being successful and making lots of money." Wow. You honestly think that? Apple must the the stupidest company in history, making all that money! And Mitt Romney is "punished" by his 14% tax rate?
  
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YYYYguy on Jan 25, 2012

I hardly ever see 90's era Sentras on the road. Were they that bad that they are in the junkyard? I still see tons of Civics and Corollas, granted they sold more of them.

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- Volt 230 on Jan 26, 2012
  
  To me and most buyers, Nissan always trailed behind Toyota and Honda for durability and reliability.
  
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Volt 230 on Jan 26, 2012

Folks: they're hiring down in Mexico and the food ain't that bad either. Soon they will build the wall to keep the Gringos out!

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