Japanese carmaker Nissan will invest about 100 million pounds ($153 million) to produce a new "crossover" range of vehicles at a plant in the north-eastern English city of Sunderland, the company said Thursday. The Nissan Juke range will help secure the jobs of "34,000 people currently employed by Nissan and its British suppliers," it said. "This announcement also gives security to our Sunderland plant beyond 2020, which the team has earned through many years of hard work and their ability to continually raise the bar on quality," said Paul Wilcox, chairman of Nissan Europe. The investment was "an important sign of Britain being chosen as a global leader in car production," he said. Nissan's current Juke models in Britain are priced from about 14,000 pounds to 22,000 pounds.