Nissan has officially canceled plans to build electric vehicles at its Mississippi assembly plant, opting to produce a lineup of body-on-frame trucks and SUVs instead.
Motor1 reports that Japanese automaker Nissan has made a significant strategic pivot by abandoning a previously announced $500 million investment for electric vehicle production at its Canton, Mississippi facility. The company informed suppliers of the decision on April 30, which marks a dramatic change in its 2021 commitment to convert the plant into an EV manufacturing hub.
According to the automaker’s official statement, the decision is in line with the current market conditions, customer demand patterns and the company’s updated strategic direction. The Canton facility, which was set to produce two different electric vehicle models with an ambitious target of 200,000 units annually by 2028, will now focus exclusively on conventional internal combustion engine vehicles.
The new production plan focuses on body-on-frame truck and SUV manufacturing. The most notable addition to the lineup is the return of the Xterra nameplate, a body-on-frame SUV that will share its platform architecture with other models in the company’s portfolio. The revived Xterra is scheduled to reach dealerships in 2028, with a starting price expected to be under $40,000.
The strategic change addresses a significant capacity utilization problem at the Canton facility. The plant has the capacity to produce over 400,000 vehicles annually, yet current production volumes fall far short of this capacity. In 2025, the company will sell only 158,500 combined units of the Frontier and Altima, with both models currently assembled at the Mississippi location.
This low usage has given rise to various proposals for the facility. Less than twelve months ago, reports suggested the automaker might produce Honda-branded pickup trucks at the Canton plant, though those plans have apparently been replaced by the current truck-focused strategy.
The cancellation represents a broader industry trend of automakers reevaluating their electric vehicle commitments in response to market realities. When the company announced its Mississippi electrification plan in 2021, even at the time the estimate of 200,000 annual EV units appeared ambitious. Market conditions over the past several years have demonstrated that consumer adoption of electric vehicles has not matched many manufacturers’ optimistic projections.
Breitbart News reported in March that Honda had canceled three EV models scheduled for the US market, taking a huge financial blow rather than making EVs that US consumers are not interested in:
The financial impact of this decision is expected to be substantial. Honda is preparing to record losses of up to $15.8 billion as a result of the cancellations. The scale of these projected losses has prompted action at the executive level, with several top Honda executives agreeing to forego or reduce their pay by up to 30 percent of their monthly compensation for a three-month period.
The Ohio manufacturing facility, which is undergoing preparations for electric vehicle production, now faces an uncertain future. Honda has not said what will happen to the facility or the investment it has already made in repurposing it for EV manufacturing.
Honda has indicated that it will announce a revised mid-to-long term strategy at a press conference to be held in May this year. This upcoming announcement is expected to provide greater clarity on the company’s future direction in electrification and how it plans to address the challenging market conditions the company has identified.
Nissan’s Canton facility currently employs thousands of workers, and the shift to increased truck production could potentially provide more stable employment prospects than the uncertain EV market. The ability to produce multiple truck models on shared platforms can provide better long-term production volume stability.
Read more here on Motor1.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.
