Nissan might service Spanish Dragon 8×8 combat vehicles
MADRID, ($1=0.89 Euros) – The Spanish defense company Tess Defense, which manages the program for the supply of Dragon 8×8 wheeled armored vehicles for the Spanish army, wants to organize a support center for promising armored personnel carriers at the plant of the Japanese car company Nissan in Barcelona. This is stated in a publication on the portal Infodefensa.com, learned BulgarianMilitary.com.
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Serial production of the first Dragon 8×8 armored personnel carriers should begin at the end of 2021. The Spanish army should receive 348 Dragon 8×8 armored personnel carriers in the first stage and another 652 such armored vehicles in the next three stages.
Chinese electric car maker Great Wall Motor [GWM] was originally planned to support promising Spanish armored personnel carriers. But Tess Defense later decided to abandon GWM’s services, in line with NATO’s policy of minimizing the purchase of defense goods and services in China.
The choice for the Spanish branch of the Japanese company Nissan fell because this manufacturer has enough free production capacity that can organize an army center for the maintenance of armored vehicles.
Nissan’s plant in Barcelona currently has almost 500,000 square meters of production space, and the Dragon 8×8 project for the technical production of armored personnel carriers will occupy 150,000 square meters of production space and create 300 new jobs.
As previously reported by Defense Express, in August 2020, the Spanish government and Santa Bárbara Sistemas [Spanish branch of General Dynamics European Land Systems] signed a € 2.1 billion contract to supply the first batch of 348 Dragon armored vehicles. which will be delivered by 2030
Dragon armored personnel carriers in the ranks of the Spanish army have to replace several combat vehicles, such as wheeled 6 × 6 Pegaso, 4 × 4 LMV, 4 × 4 RG-31, or tracked armored personnel carrier M113.
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