Nissan Plans to Shutter Mexican Factories in Cost-Cutting Move

Miami Herald

2 days ago

According to a new report from Automotive News, Japanese automotive powerhouse Nissan is planning to reduce its manufacturing capacity in Mexico next year by shuttering two of its plants, including one that was opened as a joint venture with German luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz.
Per two sources, Nissan is expected to shut down the Civac plant in Jiutepec, Mexico, no later than March 2027, at the end of its 2026-2027 fiscal year. Like other Japanese automakers, Nissan follows a traditional fiscal year pattern known as nendo (年度), which runs from April 1 to March 31 the following year.
In addition, Nissan is reportedly set to end its joint venture with Mercedes on crossover production at the 2.37 million-square-foot COMPAS factory in Aguascalientes, Mexico. According to AutoForecast Solutions, Nissan will end production of two Infiniti crossovers at the plant later this year, while Mercedes will halt GLB production during the first quarter of 2026.
Like the soon-to-be-shuttered Oppama plant in Japan, the 4.4-million-square-foot CIVAC factory has some historical provenance with Nissan. The Jiutepec, Mexico, facility has been making cars in Mexico since 1966, just five years after it arrived in the market. In 1972, Nissan started exporting vehicles from Civac, and in the decades since, it has built more than 6 million vehicles and created thousands of jobs in the region.
Currently, Nissan produces the Navara and Latin America-market Frontier pickup trucks at the plant. However, data from AutoForecast Solutions shows that the plant is running at less than a third of its capacity, as it made just 80,000 pickups there last year. In 2025, Nissan plans to build 57,000, only a fraction of the 294,000 units it pumped out in 2016.
Though the CIVAC plant was its first manufacturing plant outside Japan, according to one of the sources who spoke with Automotive News, the nearly 60-year-old plant is outdated and no longer cost-effective to operate. Another source told AutoNews that the automaker will consolidate production at the plant to two company-owned factories in Aguascalientes.
The news of another potential shuttered historical Nissan plant comes on the heels of the announcement of the fate of the historic Oppama plant in Japan, which has been officially declared closed as part of the Re:Nissan restructuring and corporate austerity plan. The plant outside Tokyo has operated since 1961 as Nissan's central facility in Japan and employs about 2,400 employees. However, in a statement dated July 15, the Japanese carmaker said it will cease production by March 2028, at the end of the fiscal year 2027.
As part of the Re:Nissan plan, the automaker is expected to shut down seven of its factories and reduce its bloated manufacturing capacity by nearly 30 percent to 2.5 million vehicles by the 2027 fiscal year. Plants in Japan, India, Argentina, Thailand, and South Africa are also expected to close. In a statement to AutoNews, Nissan spokesperson Brian Brockman said the moves aren't final just yet.
"However, this process has not yet been concluded," Brockman said. "If any decisions are made, we will provide information at the appropriate time."
Over the years, the CIVAC plant has produced many significant Nissan models, including the Datsun Bluebird, the Versa, the Sentra, the B13 Sentra-based Tsuru, and even the Nissan NV200 Taxi, which was made for a New York City pilot project.
While this move comes as the Re:Nissan plan seeks to eliminate its unprofitable corners, it comes at the same time as the Trump administration lays down its tariffs on imported cars. As I mentioned previously, Nissan must overcome more than low sales and a bloated production capacity to save itself; it still has to play ball in its largest market, the United States.
The Trump administration has currently imposed a 25% tariff on cars made in Mexico and has threatened to raise tariffs to 30% starting August 1. In response to these tariffs, Nissan has paused production of less profitable trims of the Sentra and Kicks for the U.S. market and plans to discontinue U.S. sales of the Versa next year.
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