The US government will loan $5.9 billion to Ford Motor Co. and $1.6 billion to Japanese automaker Nissan to invest in improving the fuel economy of their US-built vehicles, officials said Tuesday. The loans are the first awarded out of a $25-billion program to help automakers meet upcoming fuel efficiency standards, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said at a press conference. Another $465 million will be loaned to electric sports car maker Telsa. Ford will use the $5.9 billion to retool plants in five states and boost the fuel efficiency of close to two million new vehicles annually. The department of energy estimates these upgrades will lead to fuel savings of more than 20 million gallons of gasoline a year. That would produce a savings of more than half a billion dollars a year for US drivers at current fuel prices, Chu said. Nissan will use the loans to modify its Tennessee plant to produce zero-emissions electric vehicles and the lithium-ion battery packs to power them. With this loan, “Nissan expects to cut the costs of its batteries in half and ramp up production of 150,000 American-made competitively priced electric vehicles annually,” Chu said.
