The UK arm of car manufacturer Nissan has seen operating profits fall as a number of factors impacted the automotive sector.
Newly published accounts for the Sunderland-based plant, which employs more than 6,700, showed operating profit fell from £85.1m in 2021 to £56.7m in the year to the end of March as key components normally sold to Nissan's former Russian operation were suspended. Earlier this year, in the wake of the war in Ukraine, the global automotive giant sold its research and development facilities in St Petersburg and a sales and marketing centre in Moscow in a £626.7m loss-making deal which gave it the right to buy back the business within six years.
Meanwhile Covid challenges and the semiconductor shortages that have hampered the wider sector meant production volumes were significantly down on previous years as 181,000 cars rolled off the production line, compared with 246,000 in 2021. Turnover fell 8% to £3.6bn during the period.
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Nissan said its most popular model continued to be the Qashqai with 95,000 built during the year and a place topping the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders' best selling cars of 2022 list. In May 2021, the Sunderland plant launched production of the third generation Qashqai, and in summer 2022 work started on the first electrified versions of the SUV crossover model.
At the same time, a petrol-electric version of the brand's Juke model - which has proven popular in Japan - also went into production. The firm said it produced 56,000 Jukes during the year, compared with 69,000 in the previous year. And earlier this month Nissan celebrated building more than 250,000 of its all-electric LEAF model - widely seen as the world's first mass market electric.
Manufacturing of the three models is being supported by Nissan's £1bn EV36Zero project which brings together partners in battery maker Envision AESC, Sunderland City Council and the Government. The strategy to develop an electric vehicle production "ecosystem" is centred around the Sunderland plant and brings together battery manufacturing, renewable energy supply and electric vehicle production. It will also see £423m invested over the next three years, ahead of a new electric model being produced from 2025.
Work is already underway on a new 20MW on-site solar farm, which was acquired in a £10.6m deal earlier this year. The 37,000 panel installation comes in addition to existing solar and wind turbine generation for Nissan, and once completed will provide up to 20% of the power needed for the factory.
Elsewhere in the accounts, the company said it had benefited from £12m from the Government's Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme which was used to furlough some employees.
Earlier this year, Nissan's global business reported its first return to profit in three years. Operating profit reached £1.5bn (¥247.3bn), up from a loss of £947m (¥150.7bn) as the firm said it was making good progress with its Nissan NEXT transformation plan to bring more electric models to market.
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