Nissan Motor is studying the cost competitiveness of Chinese suppliers and exploring ways to apply their practices globally, as it aims to cut variable costs by 250 billion yen ($1.71 billion) in a broad efficiency drive, a senior executive said.
Tatsuzo Tomita, Nissan’s chief of total delivered cost transformation, said the Japanese automaker was drawing lessons from its Chinese suppliers’ use of standard parts and their close collaboration with designers.
“We’ve gained access to Chinesestyle ways of working, and my current challenge is figuring out how to apply those methods to parts for our current and upcoming vehicles,” Tomita told reporters at Nissan’s head office in Yokohama on Wednesday.
As part of its ongoing turnaround plan that includes cutting about 20,000 jobs and consolidating seven plants, Nissan is targeting 500 billion yen of cost reductions by March 2027.
Half is expected to come from cuts to fixed costs and the remainder from slashing variable costs as it works to secure an operating profit and positive free cash flow in its automotive business by the financial year ending in March 2027.
Tomita said the company was not looking to shrink its supplier base, but to strengthen collaboration.
He noted Chinese suppliers were expanding globally, with operations in Hungary, Morocco and Turkey, and said Nissan was considering them as potential future partners in its international strategy.
While acknowledging the 250 billion yen variable cost reduction target was “massive,” Tomita said it could be achievable if Nissan maintained its current momentum, which it had been building by sourcing thousands of ideas from employees.
The impact of the costsaving measures was likely to materialise more widely by the end of the year or next year, as it differed from vehicle to vehicle, he added.
Nissan Motor has reduced its production plan for the new model of its Leaf electric vehicle by more than half for SeptemberNovember owing to delays in battery procurement, the Nikkei business daily said on Tuesday.
Lower than expected battery yields at a Nissan affiliate had caused the revision, the Nikkei said, adding that the Japanese automaker planned to release the new EV model by the end of the year.
The newspaper did not specify the original or revised production targets but said that the output plan has been cut by up to several thousand vehicles a month at its Tochigi plant in eastern Japan, where the new version of the Leaf is made for the U.S. and Japanese markets.
Nissan said it did not have any comment on speculative reports, adding that the new model was progressing on schedule towards its planned launch.
The company, which has gone from massmarket EV pioneer to laggard since its first model entered showrooms in 2010, is betting on the new version of its Leaf model to revive its fortunes.
This is not the first time Nissan’s EV production has hit a snag. Another of Nissan’s electric vehicles, the Ariya, was hampered by problems at its hightech production line at the Tochigi plant in 2023, Reuters reported at the time.
Shares in Nissan closed 0.4% down before the Nikkei report, underperforming a 0.3% gain for the benchmark Nikkei average
