Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group is negotiating with Nissan Motor to manufacture electric vehicles at the Japanese automaker’s Oppama plant, potentially saving the facility from shutdown as part of Nissan’s sweeping cost-cutting campaign.
The potential collaboration involves the Japanese company’s Oppama plant in the Kanagawa prefecture city of Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, a Nissan source told Nikkei. The plant employed around 3,900 people as of the end of October.
The discussions highlight Nissan’s increasingly desperate search for alternatives to outright plant closures as it battles a financial crisis. Nissan Motor unveiled sweeping new cost cuts, saying it would eliminate 11,000 more jobs and close 7 plants, bringing total workforce reductions to approximately 20,000 positions under new CEO Ivan Espinosa.
For Foxconn, the deal represents another attempt to establish itself in the automotive sector after struggling to achieve commercial-scale EV production despite multiple partnerships. Foxconn sees Japan as a big opportunity for growing its electric vehicle business and hopes to agree on partnerships with Japanese companies as soon as possible.
The Oppama facility, which began operations in 1961 and was the birthplace of the Nissan Leaf, faces an uncertain future as the automaker consolidates its global footprint. Local governments, including that of Kanagawa prefecture, have expressed concern about the factory’s future given Nissan’s sweeping restructuring plans.
