Nissan Patrol production ramps up, but showroom arrivals pushed to next year

The Nissan Patrol assembly line in Japan has stopped and started countless times during the semiconductor shortage. Now Nissan says it has a big shipment coming early next year. 

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Frustrated Nissan Patrol buyers stuck in a queue for their new four-wheel-drive will need to be patient for a while longer.

As reported previously by Drive, production of the Nissan Patrol in Japan has been interrupted countless numerous times over the past year due to the semiconductor shortage that has crippled the global automotive industry – including lengthy stoppages over the past two months.

Now Nissan remains hopeful of making up for lost ground next month, with what it claims will be one of the biggest production increases in the history of the current-generation ‘Y62’ Nissan Patrol.

The boss of Nissan Australia, Adam Paterson, said production forecasts change weekly because of the inconsistent output coming from parts suppliers which have been struggling with COVID outbreaks in south-east Asia.

While the Nissan Patrol production forecast “is not perfect” and “continues to evolve and change,” Mr Paterson said: “December will be an extremely strong production month for us and it will likely be our best individual month of production in the last 12 months.”

Mr Paterson added: “Visibility for Patrol supply is getting better, but it’s still volatile.”

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The ongoing production slowdowns mean some Nissan Patrol customers have been waiting for six to 12 months to take delivery of their vehicles.

“The challenge is that … we get feedback from suppliers that specific components can’t be made available, and unfortunately they have to change the production output,” said Mr Paterson. 

“But having said that, the outlook for (the first three months of 2022) is much stronger than it has been over the course of the last six months.”

That means, if the December production boost goes according to plan, Nissan Patrol vehicles should begin arriving in Australian showrooms in numbers in the first few months of next year.

Despite the setbacks, the Nissan Patrol Y62 has already shattered sales records for this generation model.

So far this year – to the end of October 2021 – Nissan has reported 3260 examples of the Patrol wagon as sold, an increase of 59.5 per cent over the same period last year, and eclipsing the previous annual sales record set for this vehicle last year (2820).

Despite its sales resurgence, the Y62-generation Nissan Patrol is selling at a fraction of the rate of the previous generation, which was available as a diesel.

Twenty years ago, Nissan was selling between 9000 and 11,000 Patrol wagons annually, at a time when the four-wheel-drive market was much smaller than it is today.

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