Case Study: Nissan Flashcards
What is Nissan?
Multinational car manufacturer.
Where are Nissan’s headquarters?
Japan.
Why did Nissan want to open a factory in Europe?
Nissan opened the factory so they could sell into the European market.
European taxes made it expensive to import Japanese cars from outside the EU. If the cars were manufactured within the EU they would avoid that tax.
What economic sector is a car factory in?
Secondary. (There may also be quaternary activity if the car company does research).
How would a car factory benefit the local area?
The car factory would provide jobs for people in the local area. The majority of these would be skilled jobs in engineering. These factories are often located in areas where traditional industries such as mining or ship manufacturing have been closed so finding new employment is critical for the community to survive.
The government may also invest in the road and rail infrastructure around the factory.
The local government will earn more taxes which may be used to fund local community better.
For a transport project you have studied explain how the environmental impacts have been managed.
The transport project I will examine is HS2. The reason for the new train line is to provide more options for travelling to the north of England and Scotland than exist today.
The environmental arguments for HS2 are as follows:
It is hoped HS2 will be carbon neutral as car drivers will change to high speed rail.
It will reduce the number of people who fly in the UK and therefore reduce pollution.
One the other hand there are many reasons why HS2 will be harmful to the environment:
There will be huge visual impact on the landscape. In the Chilterns the line runs through an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB).
Many ancient woodlands and nature reserves will be built on.
Wildlife habitats will be disturbed by the construction and then noise pollution once the trains are running.
Noise will effect thousands of houses lining the route.
The large size of the trains will mean they are likely to run half empty which means they will be fuel inefficient.
Ticket prices have not been announced but if they are high people are likely to still choose to travel by car for economic reasons.
The whole concept of rail travel for business is out of date as more and more business meetings take place on line.
With WIFI, time on a train is now productive as people can work on lap tops so travel time is less of an issue.
The creation of electric cars and driver-less cars will revolutionise transport and increase road capacity as they will be able to travel safely more densely.
Why is the Nissan factory located where is it?
The factory covers a very large area (1 km across) and it has space around it to expand further if they need to.
There are good main roads around the site. These are used for bringing in materials, driving out the completed cars and for the workers to travel to and fro in their cars.
There is a large car park so workers can park easily at the factory.
There is also a large space to park completed new cars ready for transportation.
