Edison International's Vision for the future includes widespread public adoption of electric vehicles and tapping unused overnight capacity in the nation's electricity grid to fuel them.
Southern California's Electric Vehicle (EV) Technical Center is unique in the utility industry. Every day it provides a broad range of electric transportation services, focusing on solutions for automakers, battery manufacturers, government agencies, business and industrial fleet customers, residential customers and more. On Thursday, March 19 President Barack Obama visited the center.
After touring the facility, President Obama announced an outlay of $2.4 billion in stimulus funds to encourage the next generation of plug-in hybrids electric vehicles and their advanced battery components.
"This workshop is a perfect example" of how Californians are doing what needs to be done to overcome the financial crisis.
"Day by day, test by test, trial by painstaking trial; the scientists, engineers, and workers at this site are developing the ideas and innovations that our future depend upon. It is your ingenuity that will help create the new jobs and new industries of tomorrow."
"Here at Southern California Edison, and all across the country, in factories and laboratories, at the Big Three and at small startups, these innovations are taking place right now."
"…At our best, we have never relied on hope and chance alone. Time and again, we have tapped those great American resources: industriousness and ingenuity. That, after all, is what California is all about. This is a state that has always drawn people who've had their eyes set on the horizon; who've always dreamed of a future that others thought beyond reach. That is the spirit that you are reclaiming here at the Electric Vehicle Technical Center, and that is the spirit we need to reclaim all across this country."