Rolling back the years

7/22/2009 5:23 AM EDT

England finally managed to win an Ashes Test at Lords for the first time since 1934.

We also had the opportunity to recall how we blearily tried to decipher grainy black and white images of Neil Armstrong make his 'One Small Step' in the early hours forty years ago.

And in the past few days we appear to be reliving the early 1970s as we watch government ministers around Europe fall over themselves to try and court Japanese senior business executives in an attempt to lure some much needed jobs to our region by promising a mixture of financial incentives and grants.

Japan's third-largest automaker, Nissan Motor Co., announced this week that the company will invest almost $700 million to build two plants in the U.K. and Portugal to produce lithium-ion batteries for electric cars.

The U.K. factory, which will create as many as 350 jobs, will be located in Sunderland, northeast England, while several possible sites have also been identified in Portugal. The British and Portuguese plants will each have an annual production capacity of 60,000 units.

The U.K. government has admitted it is offering grants and loan guarantees for the new Sunderland plant. What we do not know as yet is how much these incentives will cost the tax payer or whether they will be value for money.

Nissan, which is 44 percent owned by French carmaker Renault SA, already has a plant in Sunderland, the U.K.'s largest auto factory, where the company builds the Micra model. Nissan says its plans to invest $330 million over the next five years in the U.K. site and $356 million in Portugal. No wonder governments are so keen to help finalise the deal.

Nissan's and Renault's zero-emissions program aims to offer electric vehicles in the U.S. and Japan starting in 2010 and globally in 2012.

In the next few months Nissan will also be revealing where the company plans to produce electric vehicles in Europe which is the main prize up for grabs for European governments looking to revive their economies and reduce their unemployment queues.

Despite Gordon Brown and the Business Secretary Lord Mandelson personally travelling to Nissan's Sunderland plant for the battery production announcement Nissan is not promising to build future electric cars in the UK. The company is keeping its options (and bargaining position) open by saying it was discussing further potential battery production sites with other European governments.

The Nissan announcement follows in the slipstream of Toyota Motor Corp., the world's largest hybrid maker, which revealed its plans to produce hybrid vehicles in Europe for the first time next year.

Nissan has lagged behind major hybrid makers including Toyota, Honda and Ford Motor Co. as the company has focused more on developing electric cars. Nissan plans to roll out electric vehicles next year in Japan and the U.S.

Toyota, the world's biggest car maker by sales volume said it will manufacture a hybrid version of the Auris subcompact hatchback in the U.K. from the middle of 2010. The company aims to spend $32 million to prepare for production. Unlike Nissan though, Toyota appears to be planning to ship the batteries and motors from Japan to be assembled in Europe.

Let's hope the new investment leads to a sustainable business model that stands the test of time. After all not all of us are patient as the England cricket team or NASA.