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No one thought it wouldn't happen, but energy Secretary Steven Chu made it official a few minutes ago: the $1.4 billion federal loan for which Nissan won preliminary approval last summer has been funded.


The money, from the $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, is to be used to modify Nissan North America's manufacturing plant in Smyrna, Tenn., to build the company's Leaf electric car and to build a new battery factory on the site to manufacture the lithium battery packs the EV will use.


The auto plant will be capable of turning out 150,000 Leafs a year when the modifications are completed - a multi-year project - and the battery plant will have annual capacity of 200,000 battery packs, Nissan says. Some of the batteries will be exported.


The project is expected to add 1,300 jobs to Nissan's U.S. payroll when running at full capacity.


Chu recently announced completion of processing and final approval of advanced tech vehicle manufacturing loans for EV and plug-in hybrid projects by Ford Motor Co. ($5.9 billion), Fisker Automotive ($528.7 million) and Tesla Motors ($465 million).

Tags: Batteries, Nissan, Plug-ins and Electric, Battery Manufacturing, EVs, Nissan Leaf Manufactureing Loan

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Energy Department OKs $1.4 Billion Loan for Nissan Leaf EV Production in U.S. was originally published by Green Car Advisor. Read the full story by clicking here.