Mitsubishi to build Nissan Navara in Thailand

Growing demand for Nissan vehicles in Australia, China and South East Asia has seen the Japanese company's Thai plant reach production capacity.

As a result, and drawing on its 2010 agreement with Mitsubishi, Nissan will shift the production of its Thai-built Navara to Mitsubishi's Laem Chabang (Thailand) plant. The larger facility is set to produce the bulk of Nissan's Navara range from 2012.

The move has already seen Maxima production return to Japan as Nissan's Thai plant struggles to meet the demand placed upon it. Currently, Nissan's Thailand facility produces Navara D22 and D40 models as well as a handful of passenger models.

Nissan says the new production agreement is expected to enhance the competitiveness of both companies.

"We already take the majority of Navara D40 and the older D22 versions from Thailand," Nissan Australia head of corporate communications, Jeff Fisher, told motoring.com.au

"Over the past 12 months, we've progressively re-sourced production of Navara D40 from Spain to Thailand, although the D40 ST-X 500 will still be manufactured in Spain for the time being."

As Nissan increases the number of its light commercial vehicles produced in Thailand, what other models would be sourced from either its own Thai plant or indeed Mitsubishi's? Of particular interest is the platform-sharing Pathfinder, currently manufactured in Spain.

"Never say never," Fisher answered. "Thailand is becoming an increasingly important source of manufacture for us, but for now, we [will] still have the Pathfinder coming out of Spain."

Nissan already builds a handful of passenger models in Thailand, many of which are growing in popularity, especially in the booming Chinese market. With demand burgeoning, will any other Nissan models roll down the Mitsubishi line?

"We already get Micra [out of Thailand], and we also had Maxima [sourced from] there for a while. We've moved that (Maxima) back to Japan now because the pressure on our Thai plant was growing. That's pretty much the reason we've sourced [Navara] D40 out of Thailand.

"We're doing a lot of business in South East Asia, some of the export still goes to China, to supplement our plant in Dong Feng. [Even with its annual] 450,000 car capacity they can't get enough over there.

"It was basically the fact that in that period Nissan Thailand needed the help of Mitsubishi. Last year we announced the whole deal. The plant already sees Mitsubishi make cars for Nissan to go in to China."

With Navara to be built by Mitsubishi, what will happen in terms of commonality of production techniques, drivetrains or styling as the collaboration matures?

"In terms of integrity of the Navara there are no plans to make any major technical changes to commonise it [Navara] to Triton. Other media outlets have speculated that the two vehicles will look more alike, that's not right. At least in the interim period the integrity of the vehicle will remain seperate", Fisher concluded.

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