THE North-East could become a world leading centre of electric car production it was claimed yesterday.

The claim was made after the region was selected to take part in the world’s largest trial testing of the day-to-day viability of electric vehicles.

As reported in yesterday’s Northern Echo, a consortium, including Nissan, in Sunderland, and Smith Electric Vehicles, part of the North-East based Tanfield Group, as well as AVID Vehicles, Liberty Electric Cars, Newcastle University and One North East, have received funding from the Government’s Technology Strategy Board to develop and trial electric or low-carbon vehicles.

The North-East trial, involving £3.9m of Government funding and up to £6.7m from the consortium, is one of eight around the country, involving more than 340 cars.

It will put 35 passenger vehicles on the North-East roads later this year or early next year.

Washington-based Smith, working with LTI and Ford, is likely to produce the first vehicle for trial, an executive minibus.

The fleet will also include 15 Nissan cars, ten taxis and five people carriers produced by Smith, two AVID saloon cars and two Liberty urban Range Rovers.

A network of charging points will be monitored by Newcastle University’s Transport Operations Research Group.

They will initially be installed in Newcastle and Gateshead, with the trials then moving to the Tees Valley and the wider North-East.

Dan Jenkins, spokesman for the Tanfield Group, said: “If we continue to get the right investment, then Tanfield, and the North-East as a whole, can be at the centre of a new automotive industry, not just for the region or the country, but the world.”

Smith already produces vans used in London by supermarket chain Sainsbury’s.

Mr Jenkins added: “We are already a world leader in electric vehicles that move goods, and this will support our investment in vehicles that will make us a world leader in moving people.

“We already have vehicles on the road, so this is about transferring that technology from vans into taxis and people carriers.”

Trevor Mann, a senior vicepresident of Nissan Europe, said its initial models would be built in Japan, but the Sunderland plant could be considered for European production of electric vehicles if they went to mass market.

He said: “We would be a strong contender for producing that vehicle. We are very hopeful, but we will have to wait and see.

“We need to understand how the market is taking to it.

This trial is a key part of that, to understanding if it works in the European market, which we are sure it will. It is new technology. It does make environmental sense, but it needs to make economic and practical sense too.”

Mr Mann believed the North-East was a good area in which to trial the Nissan vehicles, which will be a four or five-seater model, similar to the Qashqai.

He said: “If you look at the geography of the North-East you have a number of big cities and outlying towns and villages and a large commuting population. In that sense it is ideal.”

Chris Pywell, head of strategic economic change at One North East, said: “It is our responsibility to work with the partners to make sure they remain competitive in new markets.”