Shanghai October 25 (Gasgoo.com) Nissan Motor's design studio in Beijing is expected to be in place at the end of this year or early next year, its Design Director recently said at the Nissan Global Design Center in Yokohama, Japan, the Beijing Times reported Monday.
Since establishing the Nissan-Renault alliance in 1999, Nissan has built two design centers in Japan's Atsugi and Harajuku, one in San Diego, America and one in London. Its fifth design center, with a total investment of 11.76 million yuan ($1.7 million), is located in the Chao Yang District, east Beijing, and will be part of Nissan's global network of design centers. The Japanese automaker set up its first design studio in Tokyo in 2011, where concept cars are being designed by a team made up of 20-30 people.
Nissan hopes to cultivate a group of excellent designers in the world's largest auto market and let them design vehicles according to local tastes, the above person said. Locating the design studio in China can not only help the company take better advantage of local talents, but give it a better understanding of Chinese consumers' requirements for cars, he added.
About 20 famous designers, mainly Chinese, will work in the Beijing studio, responsible for designing and developing Nissan's volume models and concept models for the global markets.
