The United States Department of Energy has awarded Ford, Nissan and Tesla Motors about $8 billion in low-interest loans to help them develop and manufacture more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Ford will get the largest share of the loans: $5.9 billion through 2011 to help fund advanced technologies for electric and hybrid vehicles and to improve combustion engines.
According to AutoTech Daily, the money also will help Ford retool several Michigan factories, including vehicle assembly and engine plants in Dearborn, a Livonia transmission plant and the company’s
Michigan Assembly and Van Dyke Transmission factories.
Nissan is to receive $1.6 billion in DOE loans, and Tesla will get $465 million.
Nissan aims to begin making electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries at its Smyrna, Tenn., complex early next decade, with an initial annual capacity of about 100,000 vehicles.
Tesla plans to use its loan to help outfit a plant in California for the Model S all-electric sedan it plans to introduce in 2011. Tesla has been selling its Lotus-based electric Roadster for more than a year.
The DOE loans are the first wave of a $25 billion government assistance program announced in 2007 by the Bush administration. The program did not receive funding until last fall; the balance of the money is expected to be awarded next year.
About 70 companies have applied for aid. The group includes Chrysler and General Motors, but they won’t be eligible until they have shown that they can be financially viable on their own. Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy earlier this month under an alliance with Fiat SpA. GM, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 1, hopes to emerge in late summer.
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