The FINANCIAL — The Obama administration on Monday will announce the selection of nine projects totaling $187 million to improve fuel efficiency in heavy trucks and passenger vehicles.
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu will use a Cummins Inc. (CMI) facility in Columbus, Indiana, as the backdrop to announce the winning projects, according to The Wall Street Journal. All but one are based in Michigan and Indiana, two states that have been the focus of much of the clean-energy spending approved by Congress in last year's economic stimulus package.
The U.S. Energy Department plans to announce that almost $54 million will go to Cummins for two projects, both in Indiana. Navistar International Corp. (NAV) is to receive $37.3 million to develop and demonstrate technologies to improve truck and trailer aerodynamics, among other purposes.
The Obama administration is under pressure to show it is working to create jobs with the U.S. unemployment rate stuck at 10 percent, as Reuters wrote.
The administration estimated the projects would create 500 jobs in areas like research and engineering near term, with the potential for creating 6,000 positions in manufacturing and assembly by 2015, according to the same source.
AP reports that in detailing the project awards, the administration said the new technologies, when in broad use, “could save more than 100 million gallons of oil per day and reduce carbon emissions from on-road vehicles by 20 percent by 2030.” Three of the projects, receiving $115 million, are aimed at improving long-haul truck fuel efficiency by 50 percent, with new designs to be ready by 2015.
In additions to Cummins, Daimler Trucks North America LLC, of Portland, Ore., will receive nearly $40 million; Navistar Inc., of Fort Wayne, Ind., is in line for $27.3 million, according to the same source. The remaining six projects for passenger vehicles will spread more than $71 million among Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Delphi Automotive Systems, Robert Bosch and a second Cummins project.
The Wall Street Journal informs that increased fuel efficiency is considered by some key environmental regulators to be an important answer to the problem of carbon-dioxide emissions from the transportation sector, which accounts for about a quarter of such emissions.
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