Nissan Qashqai passes two million units production milestone

With less than eight years in production, Nissan Qashqai created automotive history after production at Nissan's plant in Sunderland, UK passed two million units in record time. Launched in December 2006, the Qashqai has become the fastest car in the history of the UK car industry to do so. Designed and engineered in Europe for export around the world, the new Qashqai was conceived by experts at Nissan Design Europe (London, UK) and Nissan Technical Centre Europe (Cranfield, UK and Barcelona, Spain), with input from Nissan's designers and engineers in Japan.

Paul Willcox, Chairman of Nissan in Europe, said: "The Nissan Qashqai goes from strength to strength as the original and best-selling Crossover in Europe. Sold around the world and now hitting two million production units, it truly is a global success story for European design, engineering and manufacturing. Congratulations to all my colleagues in Sunderland for reaching this latest milestone. I am now looking forward to seeing how quickly we can reach three million units with this remarkable model, which embodies Nissan’s promise to bring innovation and excitement to our customers."

Nissan has invested £534 million in the design, development and production of Qashqai in the UK, which led to more than 11,000 jobs.  85% (1,706,633) of the two million Qashqais made in Sunderland have been exported to 132 international markets, from the Congo to Qatar.

Mr Willcox added: "The Qashqai is one of 12 new models we have launched in the past 12 months in Europe. This has given Nissan the strongest and most cohesive line-up in our history and is behind our drive to become Europe's Number One Asian brand by 2016."

At this success rate, Qashqai is will pass the Micra as the highest volume car in the history of Nissan’s Sunderland Plant. So far 2,368,704 Micras have been made in the plant over an 18-year period from 1992 to 2010.