"I'm delighted to add the Nissan Maxima to the growing list of Tennessee-made vehicles on our nation's highways."
Production of the Maxima in Smyrna is part of a program announced by Nissan in July 2000 to invest $1 billion in its manufacturing plants in Smyrna and Decherd, Tenn., over a four-year period.
Nissan is maximizing its production capacity utilization at the Smyrna plant, enabling the production of 500,000 vehicles annually. The company plans to build approximately 400,000 vehicles in the current fiscal year. When Maxima production begins in 2003, the plant will build 75,000 of the sedans annually.
About 2,000 new employees are being added in Smyrna and in Decherd, where Nissan is expanding its engine-building capabilities. Engines for the Maxima will be manufactured at the Decherd plant.
No additional facility construction is required to manufacture the Maxima. Production areas within the 5.2-million-square-foot Smyrna plant will be modified to accommodate Maxima lines. The new Maxima will share a vehicle platform with the Nissan Altima.
In addition to the changes at Smyrna and Decherd, Nissan will begin producing a full-size pickup truck, a full-size sport-utility vehicle and a new generation of minivan in the summer of 2003 at a factory now under construction in Canton, Miss.
The Maxima will join the award-winning Nissan Altima sedans, Nissan Frontier pickup trucks and Nissan Xterra sport-utility vehicles produced at the Smyrna plant. By 2003, Nissan will have the capacity to build about 1.1 million vehicles annually at its North American plants in the U.S. and Mexico.
