The US is to make billions of dollars in cheap loans available to Ford , Nissan and Tesla, the California electric carmaker, so they can re-equip their plants to build a new generation of electric and other fuel-efficient vehicles. Ford will receive $5.9bn, Japan’s Nissan $1.6bn and Tesla $465m from $25bn of government money that was set aside in 2007 for a scheme known as the advanced technology vehicles manufacturing incentive programme.

The US funding is another example of how Ford has benefited by not joining General Motors and Chrysler, its two Detroit-based rivals, in asking for direct government bail-outs.