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Nissan’s decision to centre production of its all-electric car, the Leaf, in Sunderland is estimated to have generated £500m within the region. Richard Northedge reports on the ripple effect of its investment

company started producing petrol vehicles there in 1986, but now it is turning the area into a centre of green technology by choosing it as the European base for building the Leaf, its noiseless fi ve-door hatchback. The fi rst Leaf cars will roll off the production line in 2013,

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but already the ripples are spreading across the region. Workers are being recruited and local suppliers have been selected to supply parts, but the infl uence is being seen much more widely. Councils there are providing 750 recharging points for topping up the Leaf and rival electric vehicles, while other environmentally friendly manufacturers are prospering from the momentum. Paul Watson, leader of Sunderland’s City Council, says:

“We’re seeing a lot of technological development in the northeast for electric vehicles and Sunderland is at the heart of these developments.”

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here is a new buzz in northeast England, but it is a silent buzz. The local economy is pulsating to the throb of electric cars being built at Sunderland. Nissan revived the region when the Japanese

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The region is the UK’s fi rst Low Carbon Economic Area for ultra-low carbon vehicles. Trevor Mann, Nissan’s senior vice-president in the UK, says: “That’s put a meaning behind this: a lot of people are talking about environmental and sustainable industries. We’ve got a lot of wind-turbine technology around the area and many others, plus local colleges and universities are about to open sustainable manufacturing courses. We’ve converted our test track to support those industries.”

But simply because the Japanese manufacturer has built conventional vehicles at the Tyne & Wear plant for a quarter of a century did not mean this was the automatic choice for a new generation of vehicles. Mann adds: “We have a Nissan factory in Spain and others further afi eld that can be competitive – for example, in Mexico. So we have internal competition and our alliance with Renault is part of that competition and they have facilities in France, India among others.” Add this to the possibility of using a greenfi eld site, and many governments were vying to attract this manufacturer. Nissan has been producing Leaf cars at its Oppama plant in