Navistar will be just one of the beneficiaries of this huge stimulus package; receiving a $39 million grant to manufacture electric trucks, which the company reports will ultimately create or save hundreds of jobs when full scale manufacturing at the site begins.
Industry officials calculate that the $2.4 billion fund, coupled with another $2.4 billion in cost share from the award winners, will result directly in the creation of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the US battery and auto industries. "If we want to reduce our dependence on oil, put Americans back to work, and reassert our manufacturing sector as one of the greatest in the world, we must produce the most advanced, efficient vehicles of the future," said President Obama.
The US Department of Energy selected the 48 winning advanced battery and electric drive projects through a tender process in order establish America as a leading manufacturer of electric vehicles and associated components and boost the deployment of electric drive vehicles. The new funding includes: $1.5 billion in grants to produce batteries and their components and to expand battery recycling capacity; $500 million to produce electric drive components for vehicles, including electric motors, power electronics, and other drive train components; and a further $400 million for the purchase of thousands of plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles for test demonstrations in several dozen locations. This latter amount will be used to deploy such vehicles and evaluate their performance, to install electric charging infrastructure, and to provide education and workforce training to support the transition to advanced electric transportation systems.
Vice President Joe Biden and four members of the Cabinet, fanned out across the country to promote the stimulus announcement. "For our nation and our economy to recover, we must have a vision for what can be built here in the future – and then we need to invest in that vision," said Biden. "That’s what we’re doing today and that’s what this Recovery Act is about."
Aside from Navistar, other companies receiving funding from the $2.4 billion pot include A123 and Johnson Controls, which will receive a total of approximately $550 million to establish a manufacturing base for advanced batteries; and two others, Compact Power and Dow Kokam, which will be granted a total of over $300 million for manufacturing battery cells and materials.
Large automakers based in Michigan, including GM, Chrysler, and Ford, will also receive a total of more than $400 million to manufacture thousands of advanced hybrid and electric vehicles as well as batteries and electric drive components; while Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, visited Celgard, in Charlotte, North Carolina, to announce a $49 million grant for the company to expand its separator production capacity to serve the expected increased demand for lithium-ion batteries from manufacturing facilities in the United States.
The funding will not only help companies. The University of Michigan, Wayne State University in Detroit, and Michigan Technological University in Houghton for example, will receive a total of more than $10 million for education and work force training programs to train researchers, technicians and service providers, and to conduct consumer research to accelerate the transition towards advanced vehicles and batteries.
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