Built in Britain: 40 Years of Nissan in Sunderland

Three of the Nissan cars sold in Britain are built in Britain: the Qashqai, the JUKE and the LEAF, all at Nissan's plant in Sunderland. The plant turned 40 in 2026 and is the UK's largest single-site car factory. Nissan itself is a Japanese company, headquartered in Yokohama, with Renault as its largest shareholder.

Is Nissan British or Japanese? Six quick answers

Which Nissans are built in Britain?

The Nissan Qashqai, JUKE and LEAF are built in Sunderland, and the new KICKS hybrid SUV will join them. The rest of the range comes from Nissan's factories in Japan and from Renault plants in Europe.

You can see the full spec of each Sunderland-built car on its model page: the Nissan Qashqai, the Nissan JUKE and the all-new Nissan LEAF.

Where a car is built makes a real difference to one thing buyers care about: the Electric Car Grant. The grant's top £3,750 band goes to cars that meet its sustainability rules, which take into account how and where a car and its battery are made. The British-built LEAF qualifies for the full £3,750 on every version.

Everything else is the same wherever your Nissan comes from. Every new Nissan carries the same manufacturer warranty and is serviced the same way at our workshops.

Nissan Sunderland: 40 years of building cars in the North East

Nissan's Sunderland plant is the UK's largest single-site car factory, and it turned 40 in 2026. It has built 12 million vehicles since the first Bluebird rolled off the line in 1986, which Nissan works out as roughly one car every minute and 45 seconds.

The numbers behind it, from Nissan:

Ten models have now been given to Sunderland: the Bluebird, Primera, MICRA, Almera, Note, Infiniti Q30, JUKE, Qashqai and LEAF, with the KICKS the tenth. The MICRA was a Sunderland car for many years. The second-generation MICRA was built there and named European Car of the Year in 1993, and more than 2.3 million MICRAs were made at the plant before production ended in 2010.

The plant's future is electric as well as hybrid. Sunderland is the centre of Nissan's EV36Zero project, which brings together electric car production, battery manufacturing and renewable energy. A new battery gigafactory run by AESC sits across the road and will supply batteries for the new LEAF. Nissan has also said the third-generation JUKE will be fully electric and built at Sunderland from 2027, and in September 2026 it confirmed a £170 million investment to build the new KICKS hybrid SUV there. Read what we know about the new Nissan KICKS.

"It's the perfect way to celebrate our 40th year as a world-class manufacturing site," said Adam Pennick, Vice President of Manufacturing at the Sunderland plant, when the KICKS was announced.

Is Nissan Japanese? And who owns Nissan?

Yes, Nissan is a Japanese car company, headquartered in Yokohama. It is a public company owned by its shareholders, and it trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Its biggest shareholder is the French carmaker Renault, which has been Nissan's alliance partner since 1999.

The relationship has changed a lot over the years:

• 1999. Renault and Nissan signed their alliance on 27 March 1999. Renault bought a 36.8% stake in Nissan.
• 2001. Nissan took a 15% stake in Renault, and Renault's share of Nissan rose to 43.4%.
• 2016. Nissan bought a controlling 34% stake in Mitsubishi Motors, creating the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. Nissan reduced that stake to 24% in November 2024.
• 2023. The two companies rebalanced. Renault cut its voting stake in Nissan to 15%, matching Nissan's stake in Renault, and placed its remaining Nissan shares in a French trust. The transfer was completed in November 2023.
• 2025. In March 2025 Renault and Nissan agreed that each could reduce its minimum holding in the other from 15% to 10%. In June 2025 Nissan confirmed it would sell part of its Renault stake to raise around ¥100 billion for new vehicle development.

So the honest answer to "is Nissan owned by Renault?" is no. Renault is a large shareholder and a close partner. The two still share platforms and factories: the new electric Nissan MICRA, for example, is built by Renault in France, on the same underpinnings as the Renault 5. But Nissan has its own board, its own management in Japan and its own model plans.

Did Nissan merge with Honda?

No. Nissan and Honda announced merger talks on 23 December 2024, and both companies ended them in February 2025. The two have since discussed working together on specific projects, but they remain separate companies.

Nissan's president and chief executive since 1 April 2025 is Ivan Espinosa, who previously ran the company's product planning.

Nissan's history: from DAT to Datsun to Nissan

Nissan's story starts more than a century ago in Tokyo. It is a story of three names.

What does Nissan stand for? The name comes from Nihon Sangyo, the holding company led by Yoshisuke Aikawa. Nissan became the company's name in 1934, when Nihon Sangyo became its sole investor.

What happened to Datsun? Datsun was the name on Nissan's small cars for decades, and it is the badge many British drivers of a certain age still remember on Sunnys and Cherrys. Between 1983 and 1985 Nissan switched its export cars to the Nissan badge. The Datsun name came back briefly for emerging markets in 2013, and Nissan stopped selling Datsun cars in 2022.