Nissan's Smyrna Plant Reaches Major Milestone in Tennessee

Nissan North America's (NNA) vehicle assembly plant in Smyrna, Tenn., celebrated 25 years of building high quality vehicles at the award-winning facility today. Since the plant produced its first compact pickup truck in June 1983, more than 8.2 million vehicles have been built in Smyrna.

"Over the past 25 years, Nissan's Smyrna plant has placed its mark on this community, the southern United States, and the automotive industry," said Greg Daniels, senior vice president, U.S. Manufacturing, Nissan North America. "We are extremely proud of what we've accomplished over the past quarter of a century and are looking forward to the next 25 years."

Nissan was the first foreign automaker to bring vehicle assembly operations to the southern part of the United States. The Smyrna plant represents a total capital investment of $2.5 billion over the past 25 years.

Vehicles produced in Smyrna have won numerous awards including the 2002 Altima voted by U.S. and Canadian journalists as the "North American Car of the Year."

Today, the plant's 5,650 employees build eight vehicles:

• Nissan Altima mid-size sedan
• Nissan Altima Coupe
• Nissan Altima Hybrid mid-size sedan
• Nissan Frontier King Cab pickup
• Nissan Frontier Crew Cab pickup truck
• Nissan Maxima sport sedan
• Nissan Xterra sport-utility vehicle
• Nissan Pathfinder sport-utility vehicle

"Nissan's decision to begin manufacturing in Tennessee 25 years ago was a watershed event for our state and our nation," said Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen. "With Nissan's continued success and the passage of time, it's easy to forget what a bold, innovative move that decision was and how it transformed our state's economy. The launch of the Smyrna facility was literally the first step in an explosion of automotive manufacturing in the southeast U.S. and the impact of the Nissan team is still being felt today."

"After 25 years, Nissan's investment in Tennessee continues to reap benefits for our state each day," said Matt Kisber, commissioner, Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. "From the thousands of good paying jobs to the additional employment provided by Nissan suppliers to the quality of the vehicles rolling off the assembly line, all of us in Tennessee are proud of Nissan's contributions to our state's economy."

• 1980 - Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., established a U.S. manufacturing venture and announced plans to build a manufacturing facility in Smyrna, Tennessee.
• 1981 - Construction began on the $760 million plant and the first of 1,300 employees was hired.
• 1983 - Job 1 of Nissan's compact pickup rolled off the assembly line.
• 1984 - Nissan announced plans to assemble the Sentra sedan; the first Nissan car to be built in the United States, creating 1,700 jobs.
• 1985 - Sentra 1 rolled off the assembly line.
• 1989 - Nissan announced plans to assemble the Altima sedan, requiring a $490 million expansion and creating more than 2,000 jobs.
• 1992 - Altima Job 1 rolled off the assembly line.
• 1994 - The Smyrna plant was named most productive car plant and most productive truck plant in North America in The Harbour Report benchmarking survey.
• 1997 - The all-new Nissan Frontier pickup was launched.
• 1999 - The Smyrna plant launched the Nissan Xterra sport utility vehicle.
• 2000 - The Xterra was named "North American Truck of the Year".
• 2002 - The Altima was named "North American Car of the Year" .
• 2005 - It was announced Smyrna would begin building the Altima Hybrid in the summer of 2006 for the 2007 model year.
• 2006 - Smyrna earned the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ENERGY STAR award which recognizes energy-efficient operations that have cut pollution, lowered energy consumption and reduced costs

In North America, Nissan's operations include automotive styling, engineering, consumer and corporate financing, sales and marketing, distribution and manufacturing. Nissan is dedicated to improving the environment under the Nissan Green Program 2010, whose key priorities are reducing CO2 emissions, cutting other emissions and increasing recycling.

Source: Nissan