Nissan, the struggling auto giant, announced on Tuesday that it will cease production at its Oppama plant in Japan at the conclusion of its fiscal year 2027.
Nissan announced that it will lay off 15% of its global workforce after reporting a net loss of 671 billion yen ($4.5 billion) last year.
“The company will cease vehicle production at the Oppama plant at the end of fiscal year 2027,” a statement from Nissan stated.
According to the statement, production at the plant outside of Yokahama will be moved to an existing factory on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan. According to the company’s website, Oppama, one of Nissan’s six domestic plants, started operations in 1961 and employed about 3,900 people as of October 2024.
The company was a “pioneer in the production of advanced vehicles, such as the Nissan LEAF, the world’s first mass-market electric vehicle,” according to it. The heavily indebted automaker is cutting production as part of its costly business turnaround plan after its proposed merger with Japanese rival Honda fell through this year.
By fiscal year 2027, Nissan plans to “consolidate its vehicle production plants from 17 to 10,” the company announced in May. Nissan, like many of its competitors, is having trouble competing with Chinese EV manufacturers. Negotiations broke down in February when Honda suggested making Nissan a subsidiary, despite the fact that the merger had been viewed as a possible lifeline.
The arrest of former CEO Carlos Ghosn in 2018 was one of many setbacks for Nissan in recent years. Moody’s cited the company’s “weak profitability” and “aging model portfolio” as reasons for downgrading it to junk. The difficult “business environment” caused the automobile giant to abandon plans this year to construct a $1 billion battery plant in southern Japan, which had only recently been agreed upon.
Nissan is thought to be the Japanese automaker most vulnerable to the 25% tariff that US President Donald Trump placed on Japanese imports earlier this year.
