Nissan Trims Capacity in Japan

Nissan Motor Co. joined Toyota Motor Corp. this week in announcing capacity cuts in Japan because the country's strong yen hurts profits on exported vehicles.

Nissan says it will trim its domestic assembly capacity to 1.16 million units per year from the current 1.35 million units. The reduction will be accomplished by closing one of two assembly lines at its Oppama plant in July, thus reducing the factory's annual capacity to 240,000 units from 430,000 units.

The affected line makes the Note and Tiida subcompact and Sylphy compact car. Nissan declines to comment on The Nikkei's claim that the company intends to move some of that production to Thailand.

Nissan, which expects to build 1.22 million vehicles in Japan this year, has pledged to retain at least 1 million units of domestic production capacity. Last year the company built 28% of its global output in its home market.