Nissan’s Sunderland plant has been the UK’s largest car factory since 1986. The EV36Zero programme is converting it, in place and without stopping production, into a combined electric-vehicle assembly, battery and renewable-energy campus. Total commitment across Nissan and its partners runs to roughly £3 billion.
Project Scope
The work splits three ways. The existing assembly lines are being retooled for flexible EV build. AESC is adding battery gigafactories on and next to the site, the second of which is a 12 GWh, £450 million plant that Wates Group delivered as the largest single-value project in that contractor’s 125-year history, with SES Engineering Services on M&E. A third gigafactory is under construction now. Jatco is adding an electric powertrain plant targeting 340,000 units a year from 2026.
The third-generation Nissan LEAF started coming off the transformed line in December 2025, which is the useful milestone: the retooling is far enough along to be building saleable cars, not prototypes.
Why It Matters
Gigafactory construction in Europe has produced more cancelled announcements than finished buildings over the past four years. Sunderland is one of the few sites where the battery plant, the vehicle line and the power supply are all going in together and all reaching production. The reason is unglamorous and worth copying: the campus was an operating plant with an existing grid connection, trained workforce and established supply chain, so the programme never had to solve those three problems from zero. On-site wind and solar feed the site under the carbon-neutral manufacturing target the programme is named for.
Project Team & Details
| Developer | Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK |
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| Owner / Client | Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK |
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| General Contractor | Wates Group (AESC Gigafactory) |
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| Major Subcontractors | SES Engineering Services (M&E) |
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| Status | Under Construction |
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| Funding Source | Mixed |
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