Speaking at a Navistar facility in Elkhart, Ind., President Obama on Aug. 5 announced 48 new advanced battery and electric drive projects that will receive $2.4 billion in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Navistar will receive $39 million of the total to develop, validate, and build 400 advanced-battery electric delivery trucks. The trucks, which will have a gross vehicle weight rating of 12,100 lbs., will have a range of 100 miles. Navistar is in the process of finalizing a joint venture with Modec Ltd. of the United Kingdom to produce and sell all-electric Class 2c-3 commercial vehicles in North, Central and South America. The vehicle would be used primarily by drivers for local deliveries.
The 48 projects, which were selected through a competitive process by the Department of Energy, will accelerate the development of U.S. manufacturing capacity for batteries and electric drive components as well as the deployment of electric drive vehicles.
“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,” President Obama said. The Obama administration has set a goal of 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2015.
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