Nissan produces it’s One Hundred Millionth vehicle

Talk about staying power! When Nissan starting producing vehicles in 1933 as the Jidosha-Seizo Co., few would have expected the company to still be around 73 years later. Even more remarkable is the fact that in June, Nissan passed the enviable milestone of manufacturing its 100 millionth car…yes, 100,000,000!!

Of that total, 76,640,000 vehicles were produced in Japan and about 23,500,000 were overseas production, showing the International presence the company now enjoys.

Nissan was established in December 1933 as the Jidosha-Seizo Co., Ltd. (Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd.) after taking over operations for manufacturing small-sized Datsun passenger cars from Tobata Casting Co., Ltd. The first car produced by Nissan under the Jidosha-Seizo name was a Datsun Type 12. The company name was changed to Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., the following year.

In 1935, Nissan’s Yokohama Plant started production as the first assembly line in Japan to mass-produce automobiles, and went on to play a pioneering role in the country’s early auto industry.

Nissan’s production capacity increased with the start of vehicle assembly plants at Oppama in 1962, Zama in 1965, Murayama in 1966 (after the company merged with Prince Motor Co., Ltd., a major Japanese automaker, that same year), Tochigi in 1971, and Kyushu in 1976.

Nissan’s first began producing vehicles overseas in 1959 in Taiwan. In 1966, production was started in Mexico, followed by plants in the U.S. and Spain in 1983, the U.K. in 1986 and mainland China in 1995.

The following are Nissan’s major global production major milestones:

1942               100,000 vehicles
1962             1,000,000 vehicles
1969             5,000,000 vehicles
1972            10,000,000 vehicles
1988            50,000,000 vehicles
1992            60,000,000 vehicles
1995            70,000,000 vehicles
1999            80,000,000 vehicles
2003            90,000,000 vehicles
2006            100,000,000 vehicles