LIVONIA, Mich. (AP) -- A Detroit area company celebrated the mass production of charging stations for electric car batteries.
The first Blink Level 2 Charging Stations rolled Friday off the assembly line at Roush Manufacturing in Livonia, about 15 miles west of Detroit.
Roush contracted with San Francisco-based ECOtality, Inc., to make the units which eventually will be marketed for 8,300 homes and 5,000 commercial sites in 16 cities and the District of Columbia. Those are areas where the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt electric cars are to be released, said Garrett Beauregard, ECOtality senior vice president of engineering.
Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Texas and Tennessee will be the first states to receive the chargers. Nissan has not planned to release the Leaf in Michigan, yet.
"It really depends on how many vehicles show up in any particular state," Beauregard said. "We absolutely expect word-of-mouth will get the vehicles around and word-of-mouth will get the Blink chargers around."
Volt and Leaf owners who qualify for the project receive home charging units at no cost. Most installation costs also will be paid through the ECOtality project.
"The purpose (of the project) is to understand how people charge, when people charge, what the requirements are," Roush Vice President Dean Massab said. "It's really an infrastructure test."
ECOtality was awarded a $99.8 million Department of Energy grant in 2009 to start the project. It was given $15 million more last year.
Government money will not be used to help car buyers purchase the Volt or Leaf, Beauregard said.
The company will survey homes of car buyers before delivery of new vehicles to do advance wiring and installation of the chargers which attach to a wall.
The cost of electricity to charge the car batteries will be less than buying gas for the vehicles, Beauregard said.
"We expect the monthly cost to be in the $40 to $60 a month range as opposed to maybe $300 a month for your gas bill," he said. "It depends on where you live in the country. Places like California have higher utility rates than you might have in the state of Michigan."
ECOtality also expects commercial chargers to eventually be set up outside places like shopping malls, grocery stores, restaurants, town halls and parking garages.
"They can drive their vehicle where they need to and have that energy available to them to plug in," Beauregard said.
The Leaf is the only all-electric car on the market. It can travel about 100 miles on battery power before needing to be recharged. The Volt goes about 40 miles on battery power alone before needing to be recharged. But it comes with a backup gas engine that GM says can extend its range to 375 miles as it kicks in to recharge the batteries on the fly.
The Volt's battery is estimated to cost $8,000 and the larger Leaf battery is estimated to cost $12,000. The cars sell for about $40,000 and $33,000, respectively. The federal government offers buyers a $7,500 tax credit per car to help promote sales.
The high cost and limited range of electric cars have slowed their development and adoption.
That time has passed, said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who attended Friday's event in Livonia.
"Electric cars are part of our future ... and to be on the forefront of that is exciting," Snyder said of Roush's role in ECOtality project.
Over time, the project is expected to create more than 6,000 new jobs nationwide.
Roush retooled its manufacturing facility to make the chargers. Six Roush employees were retained and six newly hired to help do the work, Massab said.