While in Elkhart, Indiana on Wednesday August 5, 2009, President Obama announced 48 new advanced battery and electric drive projects that will receive $2.4 billion in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. With the hopes of further accelerating the manufacturing and deployment of electric vehicles, batteries, and components here in America, and creating tens of thousands of new jobs, President Obama said:

“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 advanced, efficient vehicles of the future”.

According to whitehouse.gov, The new awards cover the following areas:

• $1.5 billion in grants to U.S. based manufacturers to produce batteries and their components and to expand battery recycling capacity;
• $500 million in grants to U.S. based manufacturers to produce electric drive components for vehicles, including electric motors, power electronics, and other drive train components; and
• $400 million in grants to purchase thousands of plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles for test demonstrations in several dozen locations; to deploy them 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.

For a full list of award winners, click HERE.  For a map of their locations, click HERE.

Via: Whitehouse