New Models Boost British Car manufactures - Part 4, Nissan

This year has been proving a bumper one for new car launches in the British car industry.

Not to be left out of the new model fun being had by iconic British brands like Rolls Royce, Bentley, Jaguar, Mini and Aston Martin covered in former articles, important Japanese marques with Uk manufacturing plants have also been launching their own ground-breaking new models.

News From Japan

In this fourth narrative in a series looking at the British car manufactures we focus on Nissan, where big changes are underway at the firm's Sunderland base - Britain's biggest and Europe's most sufficient car plant.

The site currently turns out the Japanese firm's Micra, Note and Qashqai models, supplying about 50 countries and employing over 5,000 people.

While the next generation of the Nissan Micra due to go on sale in early 2011 is set to be assembled in India, the firm's brand new Juke model will be taking up the spare output capacity in Sunderland.

The quirkily-styled contract Suv is essentially a little brother to Nissan's popular Qashqai and a new entrant to a shop sector that has burgeoned this year with fresh models like the Range Rover Evoque and Mini Countryman.

The Juke is being offered with a trio of engines - a 1.6 petrol, 1.5 diesel and a range-topping 1.6 litre direct-injection turbo, which will be the only model offered with a four-wheel-drive option.

While the car has received favourable reviews chiefly for its stand-out styling, criticisms have centred colse to poor driving dynamics, cheap feeling interior materials, together with cramped rear way and storage capacity. However, perhaps development up for these shortfalls, the car's price is improbable to be competitive.

Order books at Nissan dealers opened last month and early reports suggest that the Juke's daring styling is proving a hit with the collective and the company may have an additional one sales success on its hands.

But the Juke isn't the only new car ace up Nissan's sleeve.

A brand new zero-emissions house hatchback called the Leaf is also in the pipeline and Nissan has announced that it will also be built at its Sunderland plant. The ground-breaking, all-electric Leaf will have a range of colse to 100 miles and be the most practical galvanic car yet launched, able to seat five adults.

First deliveries will take place in early 2011, with introductory models being shipped from Japan and Uk-built versions ready from 2013.

But customers ordering the Leaf now may face a longer than improbable wait before receiving their car. Order books have already opened in the Us and Japan and a new proclamation revealed that Nissan has taken 19,000 pre-orders for its plug-in hatchback, which is duplicate the planned output for the first year.

While possible buyers will have been reassured by the government's commitment to maintaining the proposed grant towards the buy cost of galvanic vehicles, together with the news from forecasters that resale values of galvanic cars will hold up well, doubts still remain about the longevity of costly battery packs at the heart of such cars as well as the likely cost of their leasing or renewal.

Such teething troubles aside, Nissan's new car plans demonstrate the creativity at work in the British car manufactures and indicate that the company's Uk operations can look forward to a flourishing 2011.

New Models Boost British Car manufactures - Part 4, Nissan

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