President Obama announced today 48 new advanced battery and electric drive projects that will receive $2.4 billion in grants. This is the single largest investment in advanced battery technology for hybrid and electric-drive vehicles ever made.

According to the DOE, these latest awards cover:

• $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.

• $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 advance electric transportation systems.

Essentially, the Obama administration wants to create a battery manufacturing base in the U.S. Here's what he had to say about the plan...

"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."

The companies that have been awarded the grants will have to match the federal investment.

Jeff