It’s only been a couple of weeks since Nissan announced plans to shut down its Oppama plant in Japan, and now it’s revealing a similar decision for another site. Operations at the Ciudad Industrial del Valle de Cuernavaca industrial park in Mexico will end by March 2026. All vehicle production at CIVAC will be relocated to another site in Mexico, located in Aguascalientes.
Nearly 60 years old, the first Nissan factory built outside Japan currently manufactures the Frontier, NP300/Navara, and the Versa. Originally, the CIVAC plant produced the Datsun Bluebird beginning in 1966, before adding a second assembly line for light trucks in 1975. To date, the 4.4-million-square-foot facility has built over 6.5 million vehicles and currently accounts for 11 percent of Nissan’s production in Mexico.
Photo by: Nissan
Oppama and CIVAC are two of seven factories the company plans to close as part of its sweeping recovery initiative. A third confirmed closure is Plant #1 in Thailand, where production will be consolidated into Plant #2. Under the “Re:Nissan” strategy, the automaker aims to reduce global production from 3.5 million to 2.5 million units. It also intends to cut the number of car plants from 17 to 10 while achieving 100 percent utilization at the remaining sites.
Factories in India, Argentina, and South Africa are also believed to be at risk, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Automotive News reports Nissan will dissolve its Cooperation Manufacturing Plant Aguascalientes (COMPAS) joint venture with Mercedes-Benz after ending production of the QX50 and QX55 later this year. The GLB is expected to be phased out in the first quarter of 2026. There are also reports that Nissan may sell its Yokohama headquarters and lease it back from the new owner.
Nissan has reassigned 3,000 R&D employees to focus on cost-reduction efforts. The move appears to be paying off: around 4,000 ideas have been proposed, with approximately 1,600 nearing implementation. This was made possible by freezing the development of certain new models to redirect resources toward finding cost-saving measures.
In May, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported that about 20,000 jobs could be cut, which would be more than double the 9,000 layoffs Nissan announced last November.
Whatever the case may be, the struggling automaker isn’t sugarcoating its “Re:Nissan” agenda, openly labeling it a “recovery plan.” Alongside aggressive cost-cutting, the company wants to reinvigorate sales by launching new models, revamping Infiniti, and deepening collaboration with alliance partners Renault and Mitsubishi through badge-engineered vehicles.
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