New Nissan Qashqai's aluminium goes round in a circle in Sunderland to boost 'Green'

New Nissan Qashqai

Nissan invests more than £50 million in Sunderland in aluminium production for the new Qashqai, including aluminium recycling for added ‘Green’.

The Nissan Qashqai is a big deal for Nissan – and UK PLC too with production of the Qashqai in Sunderland – so the arrival of a new, bigger, more grown-up Qashqai earlier this year is good news, and with first customer cars about to arrive Nissan are keen you know the new Qashqai has good green credibility too.

Having invested more than £50 million in aluminium production in Sunderland, Nissan now makes the bonnet, doors and front wings for the new Qashqai from aluminium – the first Nissan model built in Europe to use a significant number of aluminium panels – which helps make the new Qashqai 60kg lighter than the previous model despite the growth in size.

But Nissan doesn’t just stamp out aluminium panels in Sunderland, it goes to some lengths to make sure the aluminium is as ‘green’ as possible thanks to a ‘Cyclone’ that blasts scrap metal at 100mph and handles more than seven tons of metal an hour.

As panels are stamped out, scrap metal is shredded and extracted and returned to suppliers to turn the aluminium scraps in to new sheets which then head back to Nissan in a virtuous circle of green-ness, reducing waste and CO2 emissions in the process and saving 90 per cent of the energy costs of ‘new’ sheets.

Alan Johnson, Nissan’s Manufacturing VP in Sunderland, said:

We continue to look for ways to make both our vehicles and our manufacturing process more sustainable and the use of lightweight aluminium in the new Qashqai is a great example.
We continue to improve the efficiency and sustainability of our manufacturing operations and Sunderland will play a key role in meeting the company’s commitment to carbon neutrality.

So now you know: the new Nissan Qashqai is not just better than the old Nissan Qashqai, it’s lighter and greener too.