Nissan begins to build battery plant

Nissan has begun to build a 210m plant in Sunderland to produce batteries for its electric cars.

The new facility will create 200 new jobs and initially produce 60,000 batteries for forthcoming electric cars, such as the Leaf, which is due in 2013.

The Leaf will also be built in Sunderland.

A second battery plant will be built in Cacia, Portugal and there are plans to build more batteries at Renault's Flins factory in France.