Tennessee Joins Top U.S. Electric Vehicle Plan

NASHVILLE – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today said that Tennessee is one of five states participating in what is being described as “the largest deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure ever undertaken.”

 

The State of Tennessee’s role in the project is an outgrowth of Governor Phil Bredesen’s conversations with Nissan North America, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and other public and private partners committed to promoting the use of zero-emission vehicles, including electric vehicles.

 

“Our clean-energy future depends on the adoption of new technologies,” Bredesen said. “It’s gratifying to see Tennessee joining other top clean-energy states at the leading edge of this exciting new project.”

 

The multistate project will be funded through a $99.8 million DOE grant to Electric Transportation Engineering Corp. (eTec), a subsidiary of ECOtality, Inc., a Phoenix, Ariz.-based leader in electric transportation and storage technologies. eTec, in partnership with Nissan, will take advantage of the early availability of the Nissan Leaf, a newly unveiled zero-emission electric vehicle, to develop, implement and study techniques for optimizing the effectiveness of charging infrastructure that will support widespread electric vehicle deployment.

 

In a news release earlier today, Nissan described the project as “the largest deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure ever undertaken.” In its news release, DOE cited the project and others as initiatives that will help “establish American leadership in creating the next generation of advanced vehicles.”

 

The project will install electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and deploy up to 5,000 Nissan battery electric vehicles, in strategic markets in five states: Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington. In the Volunteer State, the initial investments will focus on Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville. Approximately 2,500 charging stations will be installed to support as many as 1,000 cars that are expected to be purchased for use in commercial and government fleets and by individual consumers.

 

The first cars will hit the road in late 2010 and early 2011. To help fund Tennessee’s share of the project, Bredesen committed $5 million for electric vehicle infrastructure in the 2009-2010 budget approved by the General Assembly. “Helping fund infrastructure, like charging stations, is a logical extension of government investment in the transportation sector,” Bredesen said.

 

Bredesen said he views the electric vehicle project as a natural extension of economic investments that recently have propelled Tennessee to the forefront of the clean energy technology field. The Pew Charitable Trusts reports that the Volunteer State is one of three states in the nation - including Colorado and Oregon - that has a “large and fast-growing” clean energy economy. 

 

Most recently, the Department of Energy in June announced that Nissan has been conditionally approved for a $1.6 billion loan to modify its Smyrna manufacturing plant to produce zero-emission vehicles and state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery packs to power them. “For Tennessee, investing in electric vehicle technology is not only about doing the right thing for the environment,” Bredesen said. “It’s also about creating jobs and strengthening our economy.”

 

Today’s announcement of the electric vehicle project involving Nissan and the state of Tennessee is one of 48 new advanced battery and electric drive projects that will receive $2.4 billion in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

 

In addition to the electric vehicle project, Exide Technologies, of Bristol, Tenn., and Axion Power International, of Columbus, Ga., are receiving $34.3 million to support production of advanced lead-acid batteries.