Nissan Motor Co. will spend $118 million to convert an underused Mississippi truck plant and build its first commercial vehicles in the United States, Bloomberg reported.
The automaker, which is Japan’s third largest, will assemble three work trucks in Canton, Miss., and begin selling them through existing U.S. dealers in early 2010, Bloomberg said.
Nissan said that Cummins Inc., the maker of about a third of North America’s heavy-truck engines, will make diesel engines for the trucks. Germany’s ZF Friedrichshafen AG will supply transmissions.
Joe Castelli, hired from Ford Motor Co. late last year, will lead the new division, Bloomberg reported.
The switch will help Nissan fill a five-year-old factory that has never produced at capacity as record high gasoline prices sapped demand for pickups, minivans and sport-utility vehicles, Bloomberg reported.
Nissan provided no details of the types of vehicles it will make in Canton, Bloomberg said. In 2006, the company said they may include a heavy-duty diesel version of the Titan pickup
It comes more than two years after Tokyo-based Nissan announced plans to sell light commercial vehicles in the United States, its biggest market outside Japan, Bloomberg reported.
