The North East (NE) is home to leading OEM’s including Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK, Komatsu, Caterpillar, Smith Electric Vehicle, Explorer Group and Cummins, who are responsible for producing over 502,000 passenger cars and commercial vehicles, 6,400 non-highway vehicles and over 325,000 engines.
The region is world renowned for automotive manufacturing, indeed Nissan Sunderland is Europe’s most productive car plant and top ten across the globe. The North East accounts for 26% of all Electric Vehicle production across Europe and boasts a significant and growing reputation for investment into research and development and new and emerging technologies such as advanced propulsion and connected and autonomous vehicles.
There are over 240 automotive companies in the NE automotive sector, together they generate over £10.2 billion in sales, export over £5.1 billion annually, with a trade surplus of £2.6bn. Today the sector directly employs 30,000 people and impacts a further 141,000 jobs across the UK. In the last five years 46 projects has resulted in £1.6 billion being invested into the NE automotive sector, future growth and expansion is set to generate an additional 10,000 new jobs in the next five to 10 years.
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