Nissan boss sets out three Brexit scenarios and how they might affect the Sunderland plant

Ashwani Gupta, chief operating officer, unveiled a 2,000 tonne £52 million XL press line at the Wearside base, with the kit to help prepare the site to make the new model of Qashqai.

It is part of a £400 million investment in Nissan ahead of that launch, on top of a £100 million investment in the new Juke, with £1 billion to be pumped into the plant over five years.

The firm had said the plant would be “unsustainable” in the case of a no deal Brexit.

When visiting Sunderland he said he saw three paths on how leaving the European Union could impact.

If trading agreements remain the same, business continues as planned, if there is no deal and World Trading Organisation terms are adopted the firm would see that as unsustainable, and if there are free trade agreements, it would be “agile” to working with those rules.

“The first option is Brexit happens with existing status which means we have no impact on what we are doing today in terms of business,” he said.

“The second is if Brexit happens with an impact on our business, which means it is not a question about the plant, it’s that our whole business model is not sustainable.

“Three, Brexit happens with the current conditions, but with additional qualifying criteria.

“If there are additional criteria are to bring more competitiveness in the country, we are always open to work on that.”

He added the Juke had “seen great success” while the Leaf had seen more than 150,000 models turned out, with his visit to make the Wearside team “proud of what they had done.”

He said he had been aware of the Sunderland site since 2006 when he was at Renault in India and worked very closely with Nissan Europe, who “always said Sunderland was a great team.”

“Since then I’ve had the question why is this plant one of the best in Nissan, but also in Renault, and today I realised what a great plant it is,” Mr Gupta said.