NISSAN has already secured hundreds of UK orders for the Leaf electric car ahead of its British launch.

About 500 orders have been placed in this country for the car, which will be built at Sunderland from 2013, and goes on sale in the UK in March.

Although lower than for launches of traditional fueldriven cars, Nissan said that, as orders from early adopters for a completely new type of vehicle, it was delighted with the numbers.

A spokesman said: “We have taken about 500 UK orders for the Nissan Leaf since September and the first of these are due to be delivered in March.

“These orders are from customers who are very early adopters of this new technology, most of whom have not yet seen a Nissan Leaf, let alone driven one.

“The figures are on track with our expectations, given global demand and the limited production volumes in this first year.

“Once people start to see the car on the roads and in dealerships, we expect orders to rise considerably, and we are aiming to secure a higher allocation for the UK market as 2011 progresses.”

It is understood that most of the orders are from individual customers, with fleet customers ordering one or two cars at present to monitor its performance.

There have been about 26,000 orders for the vehicle in the US and Japan, where deliveries of the Leaf began in December.

The car has already secured about a dozen international awards, including being named 2011 European Car of the Year in November, before the first Leaf even hit the road.

It was the first electric vehicle to be shortlisted for the award and its success makes Nissan the first Japanese manufacturer to notch up a double.

The Sunderland-built Micra became the first Japanese car to be crowned Car of the Year in 1993.

The spokesman added: “Staff from the Sunderland plant are already driving the first Nissan Leafs from the North-East’s Switch EV trial and have been thrilled with the car’s performance.

“We know excitement is growing among customers ahead of the Nissan Leaf’s arrival.”

As well as awarding Leaf production to its North-East plant, Nissan last year started construction of its advanced electric car battery manufacturing plant in Sunderland.

The region is also the UK’s low-carbon economic area for vehicles, it is building an £8.4m national Skills Academy for Sustainable Manufacturing, developing an open access test track and installing more than 1,300 electric vehicle charging points.