A press weighing more than 2,000 tons has been installed at the Nissan Sunderland plant in northeastern The extra large press is now operational. Source: Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.England. The £52 million machine is now manufacturing panels for the new Qashqai crossover vehicle.

The press exerts a maximum combined force of 5,400 tons to produce the panels and can stamp more than 6.1 million vehicle panels a year. The installation includes a recycling system to segregate and process scrap, and upgrades to the existing blanking line, which will supply flat blanks to the extra-large press.

According to Nissan, the £400 million invested for Qashqai comes on top of the £100 million invested for the launch of new Juke and is part of an overall £1 billion planned investment into the Sunderland plant over five years.