Detroit’s big 3, General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler LLC were awarded millions of dollars in funding today from the government's economic stimulus package to manufacture and deploy electric vehicles, batteries and components in the United States, the Department of Energy said.

General Motors and Chrysler, which recently exited bankruptcy with the government’s help, got an award amounting to $241.4 million for three projects and $70 million for one project respectively. Ford Motor's award totaled $92.7 million for two projects.

These grants will allow GM to accelerate the deployment of battery pack manufacturing in the U.S. and enable high volume production of the world's first extended range electric vehicle - the Chevy Volt.GM brings more than a decade of company investment and experience in electric drive vehicles to this project, GM's Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson said in a statement today.

The government's electric drive vehicle battery and component manufacturing initiative has totaled $2.4 billion, allocated among 48 projects. Industry officials expect that this investment, coupled with another $2.4 billion in cost shared by the award winners, will create tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the country's battery and auto industries.

If we want to reduce our dependence on oil, put Americans back to work and reassert our manufacturing sector as one of the greatest in the world, we must produce the advanced, efficient vehicles of the future, said President Obama, according to a released statement.

“They [the investments] will help achieve the President’s goal of putting one million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015. And, most importantly, they will launch an advanced battery industry in America and make our auto industry cleaner and more competitive,” Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy said in a statement.

The funds for the automaker's projects were allocated as follows:

General Motors

$105.9 million for cell battery and materials manufacturing facilities.

$105 million for electric drive component manufacturing facilities. Specifically, the firm applied for the construction of U.S. manufacturing capabilities to produce the second-generation GM global rear-wheel electric drive system.

$30.5 million for advanced vehicle electrification plus transportation sector electrification. The project aims to develop analyze and demonstrate hundreds of Chevrolet Volt Extended Range Electric Vehicles, 125 Volt PHEVs for electric utilities and 500 Volt PHEV to consumers.

Ford Motor Company

$62,7 million for electric drive component manufacturing facilities.

$30 million for advanced vehicle electrification and transportation sector electrification. This projects seeks to accelerate the launch and commercialization of PHEVs and electric cars by partnering with 15 of America's leading utilities. Deploy up to 150 plug-in hybrids electric vehicles, including 130 Ford Escape PHEVs and 20 Ford E450 Van PHEVs.

Chrysler LLC

$70 million for advanced vehicle electrification, in this case to develop, validate and deploy 220 advanced plug-in hybrid electric pickups and minivans.

Ford Motor Company Chrysler General motors