The government of Britain recently announced that it will be releasing a big chunk of funds to help Nissan Motor and Ford Motor to develop eco-friendly technologies and low emission vehicles.

The aid will be a whopping $551 million in loan guarantee for American car manufacturer Ford to develop greener technologies in their factories in across the UK.

It was earlier announced by Nissan that it will be utilizing its Sunderland factory to make the much anticipated electric car, the Leaf. This moved will be backed by about $30.7 million of funding from the British government.

The production of the Nissan Leaf in the UK and the batteries it will be using will generate some 550 highly technical and highly skilled jobs.

The support for the projects of Nissan and Ford follow an earlier move of the government of Britain committing about $412 million loan guarantee for the European arm of General Motors. The loan will be used to secure the operations of the carmaker in the Europe particularly in the UK.

The automotive industry is very important to Britain. The sector supports research and development, innovation of technologies,  and provides a critical supply chain for the manufacturing sector.

Ford will be investing a lot of money to develop low emission vehicles that will secure about 2,800 jobs across their plants in the UK.