Nissan opens Asean R&D hub in Samut Prakan

The Bt1-billion test centre in Samut Prakan provinnce is Nissan’s first overseas R&D vehicle-test facility in the Asean and Oceania region, Hiroshi Nagaoka, corporate vice president of Nissan Motor, said yesterday.
The scope will be enlarged from quality assurance for product launches to the upstream product-development phase of evaluation tests for trial prototypes.
It will primarily serve the five Asean countries of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand while also providing testing services for more than 90 countries around the world.
With the establishment of the test centre, NMAP will now be responsible for the physical stage of development and assume responsibility for the evaluation test stage and production stage.
“This work will be transferred from Japan to Thailand in order to ensure our products are aligned with market needs.
“And our vision is to further expand responsibility into the upstream phase of vehicle planning through taking a role in the digital stage,” he said.
The R&D centre boasts industry-first testing facilities in Thailand – an anechoic (echo-free) chamber, an acoustic chamber and a vibration simulator with an environment chamber.
By the end of fiscal 2016, a total of 330 staff will be employed, with Thai engineers trained in Japan to attain professional skill sets in order to operate the 6,600-square-metre facility.
Presiding over the grand opening, Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said this major R&D investment by Nissan reaffirmed Thailand as the gateway of the automobile industry in Asean.
The industry, commerce, and science and technology ministers joined Somkid at the event.
A total of 12 models will be tested at the centre, the Navara pickup, the Almera eco-car and the X-Trail Hybrid.
Nissan has 13 R&D centres in China, Europe, the United States and Southeast Asia, with more than 20,000 engineering professionals from various backgrounds.