EV Manufacturers are Plugging Into Available Federal Money

(MoneyWatch)  The race is on to build lithium-ion battery factories in the U.S. Last week, I reported that the Norway-based Think Global, which makes the City electric car, was applying for funding from the Department of Energy's $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program. CEO Richard Canny said that he is in talks with eight states that want to host the plant.

In addition to that $25 billion (with a "b") there's another $2 billion for advanced batteries in the stimulus package. That ready money is jump-starting a lot of activity. With economic activity otherwise at a standstill, what state wouldn't kill for the hundreds of jobs these plants will bring? They're bricks and mortar when there's not much of that going around.

Another growth venture is in building electric car infrastructure. Three companies, Better Place, Project Get Ready and Coulomb, are all expanding rapidly and signing up cites, states and countries around the world.

As Autoblog Green reports, General Motors is building a plant to assemble Chevy Volt battery packs in southeast Michigan, using cells made by LG Chem in South Korea. The plant is expected to be finished in early 2010.

In other EV manufacturing news, Bright Automotive is looking to build a plant in the Midwest that would build as many as 50,000 plug-in hybrid cars per year. The company is looking at Indiana, where it is currently based, as well as other rust belt states. Bright, which grew out of projects at the Rocky Mountain Institute, was launched with help from Google.org, Alcoa, Johnson Controls, RMI and the Turner Foundation.

Less upbeat is the news that Integrity Manufacturing, which had announced a partnership with California-based Zap to build electric cars in Kentucky, has gone belly up. Ground was broken on a site in Franklin last September, and Zap CEO Steve Schneider said at the time that the joint venture would be "a huge boost for Zap's business plans." Most of Zap's current manufacturing is in China.