Nissan is struggling in Europe. It recorded the biggest sales drop for any mass-market automaker operating in Europe for the first 10 months, with volume falling nearly a quarter.
Its market share has fallen from a high of 3.9 percent in 2012 to 2.5 percent this year, according to industry association ACEA.
The brand has only recorded a single profitable year in its European operating region, including Russia, since 2013. It's cutting a shift at its giant plant in Sunderland, England, and is shedding up to 700 jobs at its Barcelona factory in Spain.
Earlier this year it announced it would stop selling its struggling Infiniti premium brand in western Europe.
Nissan has arguably the strongest roots of any Japanese automaker in the region and it also has a history of brilliant innovation. So how has it sunk so low?
The brand in Europe has been hit by a series of events that have knocked it off course. Nissan's global management was rocked by scandal 13 months ago when its transformative Chairman, Carlos Ghosn, was arrested in Japan.
Ghosn has denied the charges of financial misconduct and breach of trust, saying he was conspired against to prevent him from further integrating Nissan and its largest shareholder, Renault, which some executives at Nissan feared threatened the Japanese automaker's autonomy.
Ghosn's arrest publicly revealed and exacerbated the friction between Nissan and Renault.
Meanwhile, Nissan has the worst exposure of any volume manufacturer operating in Europe to the UK, which for the past three years has been hit by uncertainty about the country's future trading status with the European Union after the country voted in 2016 to quit the trading bloc.
Nissan's European r&d center, main assembly plant and design center are all based in England. This has left the automaker's executives to grapple with the potential consequences of operating outside the EU. These include tariffs, difficulty hiring and retaining European workers and border delays for parts.
Nissan Europe Chairman Gianluca de Ficchy has said the Sunderland plant would be "unsustainable" if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, triggering tariffs. Said Pete Kelly, managing director of LMC Automotive: "It has been a perfect storm, but like bad weather a number of these things are beyond their control. That is the tragedy."