Jobs joy as North-East Nissan chosen to build car of future

8:10am Thursday 18th March 2010

By Owen McAteer

NISSAN will announce today that Sunderland has won the race to build the new Leaf electric car in a deal that will secure the plant’s future for years to come.

The decision, which follows months of speculation, catapults the North-East to the forefront of the low-carbon vehicle industry, with the potential to create thousands of jobs in the region.

Sunderland has been widely seen as the favourite for European production of the Leaf since the announcement last summer that Nissan’s electric car battery plant would be sited next to the present factory.

In an interview this week Nissan’s UK managing director, Paul Willcox, said he was quite optimistic Sunderland would be chosen and that a decision would be made “in a few days”.

Nissan would not confirm last night whether the car would be produced in Sunderland.

But The Northern Echo understands Business Secretary Lord Mandelson and senior Nissan executives will make an announcement today.

It has a range of about 100 miles on a full charge, which studies have shown meets more than 60 per cent of average driving needs in Europe.

The battery can be charged to up to 80 per cent of its capacity in less than 30 minutes using charging points.

Nissan president Carlos Ghosn said 56,000 Leaf cars have already been ordered in the US, which is also expected to produce the vehicle along with a plant in Japan.

The importance of the North-East building up a skills base in low-carbon vehicle manufacture could have ramifications for generations to come and make the region a prime location for companies working in the field to base their operations.

Despite months of uncertainty over Leaf, the efforts made by management at the plant, regional organisations and the Government to secure European production appear to have paid off.

It is known that the Nissan’s senior management in Japan have been impressed by the North-East’s efforts to secure the vehicle.

Speaking to The Northern Echo last year at the Low Carbon Vehicle Event, in Bedfordshire, Nissan senior vice-president Andy Palmer, the Japan-based head of the company’s electric vehicle programme, praised the North-East’s attitude to lowcarbon vehicles.

Last July, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the region would become the UK’s first low-carbon economic area for low-carbon vehicles, following Nissan’s announcement that its European centre of excellence for battery manufacturing would sit alongside its existing factory.

It came weeks after the region was selected to take part in the world’s largest trial testing of the day-to-day viability of electric vehicles, with more than £10m of financial backing from a consortium including Nissan and Smith Electric Vehicles, part of the Tanfield Group, based in the North-East, as well as the Government’s Technology Strategy Board.

This week plans were unveiled for an £8.4m national Skills Academy for Sustainable Manufacturing and Innovation, to be built next to Nissan’s Sunderland plant, which will deliver training for the low-carbon vehicle industry.

The project, involving Gateshead College, the Learning and Skills Council, Nissan and development agency One North East, will train students from the age of 14.

Last month, the Government confirmed it would offer grants of up to £5,000 for motorists who buy an electric or hybrid electric plug-in car.

The North-East is also to receive £7.8m to introduce 1,300 charging points after being named as one of three “Plugged-In Places” in the country.