By Andrew Ganz
Monday, Jun 25th, 2012 @ 9:14 am
 
Nissan has announced that it will invest nearly $800 million to build an additional assembly plant in northeastern China as it looks to expand its grip on the world's largest new car market.

In accordance with Chinese business laws, future plant is part of a joint-venture with domestic automaker Dongfeng Motor Company.

Located in Dalian, a city of about 3.5 million in northeastern China with historical ties to Russia and Japan, the plant is intended to build about 150,000 Nissan-badged vehicles annually when it opens in 2014. Eventually, Nissan hopes to expand the facility to increase its capacity to 300,000 vehicles annually.

Over the next few years, Nissan plans to invest $8 billion into the Chinese market as it guns to sell 2 million vehicles in China in 2015.

Separately, Dongfeng said today that its Venucia car brand will build 1,000 EVs to the Dalian government in 2014. It's expected that the new Venucia EV will be a version of the automaker's recently-launched D50, which is essentially Nissan's old Tiida/Versa sedan.