Today it was announced that ECOtality, Inc.’s subsidiary, Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec), a leader in clean electric transportation and storage technologies, received a grant totaling approximately $99.8 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to commence the largest deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) and charging infrastructure in U.S. history.

eTec has partnered with Nissan North America to undertake the massive project. According to the press release, the companies will install electric vehicle charging infrastructure and deploy up to 1,000 Nissan battery electric vehicles in strategic markets in five states: Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington. It has not been said if success will lead to further opportunity, but the project will certainly put the spotlight on the company and may lead to other contracts.

“By studying lessons learned from electric vehicle operations and the infrastructure supporting these first 5,000 vehicles, the Project enables the streamlined deployment of the next 5,000,000 electric