Facing its first loss in nine years and a climbing yen, Nissan’s bottom line continues to hurt. The company is responding to an expected $3 billion loss by shifting production of the Versa/Tiida from Japan to Mexico. Nissan is Mexico’s second largest automaker after GM, thanks in part to the highly popular Nissan Tsuru.

Nissan is also looking to go ahead with plans to open up shop in Chennai, India – even if the 50-50 partnership with Renault falls apart. The 400,000 unit plant set to open in 2010 was initially supposed to feature a partnership with Nissan, Renault and India’s Mahindra & Mahindra but M&M ditched the plan last year and it looks like Renault is following suit. Nissan will probably cut the plant’s capacity by the time it starts producing an Indian variant of the Nissan March and Versa/Tiida. [AutoBlog & Bloomberg]