Nissan might soon be making the Terra and Navara at Mitsubishi’s local plant

Currently, Nissan, Renault, and Mitsubishi are in a business alliance with one another. Through this partnership, each brand can greatly benefit from one another through the use of shared technology and facilities. Nissan, in its efforts to optimize its business and to cost-rationalize is now considering building its popular SUV, the Terra, and its popular pickup, the Navara, in Mitsubishi plants. In Nissan’s recently released transformation plan to prioritize sustainable growth and profitability, it stated that it would be leveraging the alliance assets to maintain its business at appropriate operational levels in South America, ASEAN, and Europe. The plan further states that it would be streamlining operations in the South East Asia region as well as bidding farewell to the Datsun brand in Russia.

Through the utilization of its alliance with Renault and Mitsubishi, Nissan is seeking to build the Terra and Navara in the Philippines through the use of Mitsubishi’s local plant in Laguna. The news of the new production plans comes from Nissan’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Ashwani Gupta who further explained during a press briefing how the Japanese brand plans to handle its revised midterm plans.

He continues by stating that Nissan together with Mitsubishi is studying how to further utilize the plant in the Philippines for its frame-based vehicles. If what he said turns out to be true then the Nissan Terra and Navara could end up being made locally. This means that these two Nissan vehicles will be joining the likes of the L300, Mirage, and Mirage G4 which are all built locally at Mitsubishi’s assembly plant in Santa Rosa Laguna.

Through Nissan’s plan for optimization, Thailand will end up being the main exporting hub for vehicles for the ASEAN region. The Japanese brand has already made plans to shut down other factories in the area such as its Indonesian plants. The result of this is that Thailand's production facilities could be overloaded and could struggle to meet the demand of the whole region as it will have to export to more markets.

In order for this to work, Nissan will need the help of Mitsubishi which is the strongest member in the alliance for the South East Asian region. With the help of the three diamond star brand, Nissan will be able to share in its facilities as well as other back-end costs. Having Nissan’s two biggest sellers being made in the country could be beneficial to both brands even if these units are just locally assembled or made from the ground up.