The US Department of Energy (DOE) grant under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has extended an agreement with UQM Technologies for further two years to speed up the deployment of the electric vehicles (EVs).
The agreement has been extended from three to five years, which is scheduled to be completed on 12 January 2015.
The company said that through 31 March this year it has qualified for funding under the grant of $16.9m.
In addition to the ARRA grant, the company also has a $4m program for the development of non-rare-earth magnet electric motors for use in electric and hybrid EVs, with $3m of the program funding provided by the DOE.
UQM Technologies president and chief executive officer Eric Ridenour said the grant has been instrumental in assisting the company to introduce an automotive qualified electric propulsion system for the CODA all-electric vehicle, which recently went on sale in the State of California, and for its other customers who are planning for potential future clean vehicle introductions.
"The extension of this grant for an additional two year term broadens our opportunity to commercialize our electric propulsion systems in the automotive, medium-duty truck and bus markets, install additional manufacturing capacity and continue work on our next generation of automotive qualified propulsion systems which we expect to be more efficient, smaller, lighter-weight, power dense and at a lower cost," Ridenour said.
