Michigan gets Battery Grants

[blue_onyx]

"Michigan stands to get $1.36 billion of a $2.4-billion federal grant program designed to spur manufacturing of batteries and other components for electric vehicles in the United States, creating up to 6,800 jobs in the next 18 months and up to 40,000 in the state over the next 11 years.

The grants announced by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were designed to establish a U.S. manufacturing base for electric vehicle batteries and motors that must now be imported from Asia, where batteries for nearly all of today’s hybrids are made today.

“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,” Obama said in a statement. "


http://freep.com/article/20090805/BUSINESS06/90805020/Michigan-to-get-big-slice-of--2.4-billion-in-battery-grants

Biden is in Michigan to announced grants today. Great for MI. We still have the highest unemployment but it's good news for our future.

EDIT: Biden is expected to speak around 12:45 today (8/5) is you're interested

http://www.wxyz.com/content/video/stream.aspx

[theophilus]

1. This is what we need. This is what it is going to take.

It will be a long process and we must insist that these jobs stay here. We can produce a good product, maybe even the best product, but it needs to be made here.

[Romulox]

2. How much of the $700 B TARP did NY, Connecticut get? nt