Join the Club: Nissan Suspends U.S. Production

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Joining a growing list of automakers, including — as of Wednesday — the Detroit Three, Nissan has announced it will cease production in the United States.

While an automaker with falling sales and bloated inventory isn’t likely to find itself in a car-less position when production resumes, those same elements spell nothing good for a company that was already in dire straits before the pandemic hit.

Production ends on March 20th, with the automaker’s four American plants (in Tennessee and Mississippi) not expected to come back online until April 6th.

“The company is taking this action to boost containment efforts where possible around the COVID-19 coronavirus,” the company said in a statement. “Currently, there are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 coronavirus at any Nissan facility. Areas deemed business-essential will operate with enhanced safety measures.”

On Wednesday, Ford, General Motors, and Fiat Chrysler announced temporary shutdowns of all U.S. assembly plants, with Honda joining the fray nearly at the same time.

Before coronavirus became a household word (and fear), Nissan found itself on the hunt for any and all cost-saving measures — everything from vastly reduced travel budgets to worker furloughs. Revamped models appeared with fewer trims and build configurations. The manual transmission is all but dead. While the automaker’s global sales suffered greatly over the past couple of years, North America remains a chief focus for newly minted CEO Makoto Uchida.

Uchida has stated that if he can’t reverse the company’s trajectory in short order, he’ll happily accept his termination. However, coronavirus represents a wrench thrown into the gears.

Last month, Nissan unveiled an earnings report that was anything but praiseworthy, slashing its profit forecast at the same time. The automaker’s U.S. sales fell 9.9 percent in the U.S. last year, with premium division Infiniti showing the larger customer exodus (more than 21 percent).

With COVID-19, at least Nissan can say it isn’t alone in its misery.

[Image: Nissan]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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 26 comments
  • Thelaine Thelaine on Mar 19, 2020

    The hits keep coming. We have done this to ourselves and have no one else to blame. The pain is going to be immense. We need to stop this madness. People need to go back to work. Kids need to be in school. Isolate the vulnerable. Everyone else take normal precautions. We need to demand a halt to this economic suicide.

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    • Inside Looking Out Inside Looking Out on Mar 19, 2020

      "People need to go back to work. " No it is good. We will have free medical care, free college, free food, free income and nobody will have to suffer from long commute every day. I like it.

  • Redgolf Redgolf on Mar 19, 2020

    And STOP THE TOILET PAPER HOARDING!

  • Analoggrotto More useless articles.
  • Spamvw Did clears to my '02 Jetta front markers in '02. Had to change the lamps to Amber. Looked a lot better on the grey wagon.I'm guessing smoked is illegal as it won't reflect anymore. But don't say anything about my E-codes, and I won't say anything about your smoked markers.
  • Theflyersfan OK, I'm going to stretch the words "positive change" to the breaking point here, but there might be some positive change going on with the beaver grille here. This picture was at Car and Driver. You'll notice that the grille now dives into a larger lower air intake instead of really standing out in a sea of plastic. In darker colors like this blue, it somewhat conceals the absolute obscene amount of real estate this unneeded monstrosity of a failed styling attempt takes up. The Euro front plate might be hiding some sins as well. You be the judge.
  • Theflyersfan I know given the body style they'll sell dozens, but for those of us who grew up wanting a nice Prelude Si with 4WS but our student budgets said no way, it'd be interesting to see if Honda can persuade GenX-ers to open their wallets for one. Civic Type-R powertrain in a coupe body style? Mild hybrid if they have to? The holy grail will still be if Honda gives the ultimate middle finger towards all things EV and hybrid, hides a few engineers in the basement away from spy cameras and leaks, comes up with a limited run of 9,000 rpm engines and gives us the last gasp of the S2000 once again. A send off to remind us of when once they screamed before everything sounds like a whirring appliance.
  • Jeff Nice concept car. One can only dream.
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