Nissan’s Barcelona plant is now closed
As announced, Nissan has stopped producing the eNV200 van at its plant in Barcelona. The electric Nissan van is history after the Japanese company made 49,000 units in Barcelona and exported the eNV200 globally. The van’s successor will be built in France.
Nissan began production in Barcelona in 1983 with the Nissan Patrol. Since then, the plant has produced 3.35 million vehicles and more than 15 different models. Among these have been the NV200 van and its electric offshoot e-NV200 since 2009 and 2014, respectively. Nissan revealed the decision to close the plant in mid-2020.
The Nissan production plant in Barcelona consists of three parts – the main Zona Franca plant, a press shop in Montcada i Reixac and frame and suspension construction facilities in Sant Andreu de la Barca. It remains unclear what will happen to the factory. In October, Spanish authorities and Nissan had begun talks with Chinese manufacturer Great Wall Motors about a possible takeover of the plant. Still, according to a new report from Reuters, Great Wall has now withdrawn its interest.
In September just passed, Nissan provided some initial details on the successor to its e-NV200. The new model is called Nissan Townstar. Its all-electric variant will utilise the CMF-C platform developed with alliance partner Renault – the new Renault Kangoo, and Mercedes Citan are also based on this platform. The new electric Townstar will no longer have that much in common with the NV200 because the manufacturer says the model has been “developed from scratch in terms of quality and functionality” on the CMF-C platform.
The electric Townstar is likely to be produced in Maubeuge, France, one of the commercial vehicle competence centres of the manufacturer alliance. Nissan has yet to provide details on the market launch and prices. However, the company has revealed that the new Kangoo and Citan electric vans will be on sale in 2022.
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