Posted By
TRACY SCHNEITER
on
3/1/2010 3:57 PM
It’s probably been at least six to nine months since Nissan reorganized their Mexican operations with the intent to make them more focused and bottom-line driven for their small-car segments in North America. I must admit that IRN’s forecasting team was initially skeptical when we first got word of Nissan’s plans for some of the sub-compact vehicles like the Micra (also known as the March in Asia). We set the volumes quite low as we didn’t anticipate very many consumers in the US would lap up these ultra-small vehicles. But we’ve since been educated in the ways of Nissan (or at least we think we have!).
Nissan has announced it is planning on manufacturing the Micra in Thailand, China, India and Mexico. It remains to be seen whether the last manufacturing site will be Brazil or England. Given the cost structure, our bet is that Brazil will be given the odds as the favorite and that Mexico's favorable trade agreements will be used to leverage as much volume as possible for all other nations.
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