Nissan could use Brexit to increase UK market share

[Mark-x]

Nissan has drafted a contingency plan to focus on its Sunderland plant in the UK and cut European production if a hard Brexit leads to tariffs on car imports from the continent, the Financial Times reported, citing two people involved in the discussions.

The plan foresees the closing of Nissan's factory in Barcelona and moving production of the Micra small car to Sunderland from Renault's plant in Flins, France, the paper said.

Nissan would use its plant in Sunderland in the northeast of England to win market share from rivals without UK production, the FT said.

Nissan's Sunderland-built cars would have a competitive advantage if rivals such as Ford and Volkswagen Group had to pay import tariffs to ship EU-built cars to the UK.

Nissan would target increasing its UK market share to 20 percent from 4 percent now, the Financial Times said.

The scenario is one of several that Nissan developed to plan for post-Brexit tariffs, the paper said. The plan was drawn up before Makoto Uchida was named as the new CEO in December, also

The automaker denied the existence of the contingency plans, according to a spokesman for Nissan Europe quoted by the Financial Times.  

"We've modeled every possible ramification of Brexit and the fact remains that our entire business both in the UK and in Europe is not sustainable in the event of WTO tariffs," the spokesman told the paper.