Brits woo Nissan for green car production

Britain's regional manufacturing and heavy industry sectors have suffered years of economic malaise with the breakdown of industries like shipbuilding and coal mining. Now the UK government sees the changes being wreaked on the global economy by climate change as an opportunity not to be missed to reinvigorate them.

But it's not easy. With EU countries pulling out all stops to transform themselves into low-carbon economies, there's hot competition for the favours of a company like Nissan looking to set up green-car manufacturing plants.

The government and One North East, the agency vested with the task of turning the area into Britain's second specialist low carbon business precinct, are trowelling on the incentives and announcements are pouring forth. There's talk of agreements. Of partnerships to explore possibilities. Of memoranda of understanding. There are visits by PM Gordon Brown and business secretary Lord Peter Mandelson, bearing multi-million pound incentive gifts.

What's missing, despite the newspaper headlines declaring it's a done deal, is any actual firm announcement that Nissan is coming to the party. Its Sunderland plant has been running way short of capacity for some time, and the government and One North East are going all-out with NGOs like the Automobile Association to convince the company that it's the perfect environment in which to build future EVs like the Nuvu zero emissions city car.

They've offered Nissan a grant of several million pounds to help retool the factory for the EV it expects to bring to market by 2011.

What they have extracted so far is a pledge from the company to put £200m into a new rechargeable battery factory there. It will function alongside a similar facility in Portugal.

But the Japanese giant is still weighing up its options, with Spain keen to do business.

The Sunderland plant already employs about 5000 people for production of Nissan's Micra, Qashqai (our Dualis, pictured) and Note models, and it's secured production of the upcoming Qazana, set for release in early 2010.

But it's the addition of EV production that would set it up as a serious long-term manufacturing proposition. Which is why all England appears to be waiting with bated breath for Nissan's decision.

That decision could have ramifications for Australia too, if Nissan chooses to import another British-built product to supplement its local line-up -- one that could counter Mitsubishi's i-MiEV, should that scenario eventuate.

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