The new Qashqai will be 60kgs lighter with the bonnet, doors and front wings stamped from aluminium alloy. This improves efficiency on emissions and helps accommodate more technology, including Qashqai’s electrified powertrain.
To ensure less waste is produced and a greener production process is achieved, at Nissan’s Sunderland plant, two processes are main-
- 2nd extra-large press line that was launched last year,
- A recycling plant that blasts scrap metal at 150km an hour and can handle more than seven tons of metal and hour.
Scrap metal is shredded and extracted so as to stamp bonnets and doors into shape and keeping aluminium grades separate.
This separation confirms that Nissan can return high quality scrap to suppliers. The suppliers then turn the separated aluminium scrap into aluminium alloy sheets and redeliver them to Nissan for use in production.
This “closed-loop” recycling system reclaims scrap aluminium, reducing waste and CO2 emissions. This contributes to the goal Nissan has set itself of achieving carbon neutrality across the company’s operations and the life cycle of its products by 2050.
Recycling scrap aluminium saves more than 90% of the energy needed to create a comparable amount from raw materials.
By the early 2030s every all-new Nissan vehicle offering in key markets will be electrified as part of Nissan’s effort to achieve carbon neutrality,
Nissan recently announced plans for a major expansion to its renewable energy generation at Sunderland, UK with a proposed 20MW solar farm extension.
If approved, the 37,000-panel extension would result in 20% of the plant’s energy coming from all onsite renewables, enough to build every single zero-emission Nissan LEAF sold in Europe.
