NISSAN BOOSTS ELECTRIC VEHICLE PRODUCTION IN CHINA

Nissan Motor is accelerating the rollout of electric vehicles in China under its main brand and its local, no-frills Venucia marque as it overhauls its strategy in the world’s biggest auto market, four sources told Norihiko Shirouzu of Reuters.

Besides the focus on green vehicles, the plan involves using more locally made parts and technologies to reduce costs and help the struggling Japanese carmaker compete better with lower-cost Chinese firms and major global rivals, the sources said.

The China strategy is a key pillar of Nissan’s turnaround, which involves focusing on producing profitable cars for China, Japan and the United States, rather than chasing all-out global growth as it did under disgraced former boss Carlos Ghosn.

“Before we were saying global, global, global, and China was just part of that strategy,” one of the four people familiar with the plans told Reuters.

“With regionalization now replacing globalization, we have to improve the cost competitiveness of all the components and technologies that go into a car by going totally local,” he said.

Both the Nissan board and the board of its China joint venture Dongfeng Motor Co. have backed the plan and some elements of the new strategy will be unveiled at the Shanghai auto show in April, the sources said.

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