(March 10, 2011) AGUASCALIENTES, Mexico — Nissan cranked up production of its worldwide compact March at the Aguascalientes plant in Mexico this week. The small hatchback, which is sold worldwide — excluding North America — is now built at four locations.

The ceremony was presided by Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, president of Mexico, who, after a tour of the plant, gave the starting signal for cars to come off the line.

With the start of production in Aguascalientes, Mexico joins Thailand, India and China as the manufacturing sites for this model around the world.

Nissan is considering the production of 60,000 vehicles (known as Micra in other markets) per year in Aguascalientes, at a pace of one vehicle per minute. Thirty percent of them will be sold in the domestic market, while the remaining 70 percet will be meant for the export market in Central and South America (Brazil, among other countries).

The Project for Mexico, that includes a sedan model based on the so-called Nissan V platform and other new projects, implies an investment of $1.05 billion, including improvements and refurbishing of the manufacturing plant.

The 2011 March, which debuted at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, went on sale in Japan in July 2010. The March is powered by a new family of inline three-cylinder engines. The base normally-aspirated 1.2-liter is rated at 79 horsepower.

The normally-aspirated engine is available with either a five-speed manual gearbox or a continuously variable transmission along with an automatic start-stop function to switch off the engine when the car comes to a halt. It gets about 45 mpg based on U.S. testing standards.

The March is smaller than anything currently sold in the U.S. with a wheelbase of 95 inches. By comparison, the Versa, Nissan's smallest U.S. vehicle, has a wheelbase of 102.4 inches.

Nissan plans to reach one million units sold in the world by 2013 with three different models based on the new Nissan V platform.