“We can break our dependence on oil…and become the first country to have one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. The future is ours to win,” President Obama said in his January 2011 State of the Union address. Some critics believe that this goal is overly ambitious, citing the fact that it took 10 years for Hybrid vehicles to reach the 3% market share, which is the same share the Obama Administration is hoping electric vehicles will reach in 4 years. But what differentiates this ambitious electric vehicle goal from Hybrids or other alternative-fueled vehicles  is that the government is investing significant resources in it.  According to a US Department of Energy report titled The Recovery Act: Transforming America’s Transportation Sector, released July , 2010:

As part of the Department of Energy’s $12 billion investment in advanced vehicle technologies, the Department is investing more than $5 billion to electrify America’s transportation sector. These investments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and DOE’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program are supporting the development, manufacturing, and deployment of the batteries, components, vehicles, and chargers necessary to put millions of electric vehicles on America’s roads.

For more on sources of information visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/Battery-and-Electric-Vehicle-Report-FINAL.pdf http://www.electrificationcoalition.org/