Ford Motors to hike electric vehicle production three-fold by 2013

Ford Motors said on Thursday it plans to triple its electrified vehicle production capacity to more than 100,000 annually by 2013.

Currently Ford sells approximately 35,000 electrified vehicles a year, led by the Fusion Hybrid and Escape Hybrid.

Customers have come to expect fuel efficiency with every new vehicle Ford delivers today, and now we are further differentiating our electrified vehicle lineup with something else people truly value - choice, said Jim Farley, Ford's group vice president of Marketing, Sales and Service.

Along with new green vehicle line up, the carmaker is adding more than 220 green technology jobs in Michigan alone as the state becomes its center of excellence for vehicle electrification, the carmaker said.

The carmaker also plans to roll out five electrified vehicles for North America by 2012 - including the Transit Connect Electric, on sale now, and Focus Electric this year. The C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid and C-MAX Hybrid will be followed by another next-generation hybrid in 2012, it said.

The Department of Energy said it is investing $2.85 billion in electric vehicles of which $2 billion will go to help US carmakers produce advanced vehicle batteries and drive train components. Around $400 million will be invested to buy, test, and deploy different types of electric vehicles in the marketplace, and $300 million in cost-share projects under the Clean Cities program.

Combined global sales of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are expected to total 5.2 million units in 2020, or just 7.3 percent of the 70.9 million passenger vehicles forecasted to be sold worldwide by that year, according to a recent automobile market research company J.D. Power & Associates.