Nissan has closed its factories in Indonesia, pulling its Datsun brand from that market and reigniting rumours the budget division will be killed off by 2022.
According to Autocar India, both the Karawang plant (which had built Nissan-badged vehicles) and the Purwakarta factory (which had produced Datsun models) have been closed. That leaves India and Russia as the two countries still producing Datsun vehicles.
While Nissan will continue to have a presence in Indonesia, the report says Datsun – which was revived in 2013 – will officially exit the country once stock levels have been depleted.
In October 2019, a Reuters report claimed the Nissan group planned to close down Datsun as part of a wider campaign to increase global profits. A few months before, the Japanese firm confirmed plans to cut “roughly 12 500” jobs as it sought to reduce its global production capacity.
Late in 2019, Datsun South Africa described the rumours of the brand’s seemingly impending demise as mere “speculation”, saying it planned to continue operating locally.
