Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) accelerated the electrification of the nation’s vehicle fleet. VTO invested $400 million in 18 projects to demonstrate plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs, also known as electric cars) and infrastructure, including 10 educational and workforce development projects. As the largest deployment and evaluation of PEVs and charging infrastructure ever, these projects collected data on nearly 6 million charging events and more than 100 million all-electric miles driven. With its partners, VTO is analyzing the data to better understand the market, improve vehicle modeling software, and develop research targets. For general information on PEVs and charging infrastructure, see the Alternative Fuel Data Center’s page on electric drive vehicles. For other data on plug-in electric vehicles, see the Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity Data and Results page.

The four major demonstration and evaluation projects were:

  • The EV Project: The EV Project partnered with city, regional and state governments, utilities, and other organizations in 18 cities to deploy about 12,500 public and residential charging stations.  It also demonstrated 8,650 plug-in electric vehicles.
  • ChargePoint America: ChargePoint America deployed 4,600 public and private charging stations in 9 metropolitan areas.
  • Chevrolet Volt demonstration: General Motors deployed 150 Chevrolet Volts around the country.
  • Chrysler RAM PHEV pick-up trucks: Chrysler tested and deployed 140 demonstration Chrysler RAM plug-in hybrid electric pick-up trucks around the country.

Project recipients gathered data from charging stations and vehicles in each of these projects from January 2011 through December 2013, as well as charging infrastructure where applicable. The EV Project also has a number of reports addressing community readiness in their target cities.

There were also four projects focusing on evaluating the electrification of heavy-duty vehicles and the accompanying infrastructure with Smith Electric, Navistar, Cascade Sierra on truck stop electrification, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District.