- The Obama administration will invest as much as $4.5B to build electric car charging stations, aiming to complete a U.S. network by 2020 to make “coast-to-coast, nationwide zero-emissions travel” a reality.
- The government plan will release Energy Department loan guarantees to support a commercial scale roll-out of charging stations, with federal, state and local governments partnering with automakers such as Ford (NYSE:F), General Motors (NYSE:GM), Nissan (OTCPK:NSANF, OTCPK:NSANY) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA).
- Charging infrastructure has been a major obstacle to widespread adoption of electric cars, but Kelley Blue Book analyst Karl Brauer tells Bloomberg that longer battery ranges probably would do the most toward boosting electric car numbers.