$6 Million Awarded for Electric Cars : Clean air: Consortium of public and private agencies receives funds to help establish an advanced transportation industry.

A Burbank-based consortium formed to promote the production of electric vehicles has been awarded $6 million in grants to help establish an advanced transportation industry in Southern California, state and federal officials announced Tuesday.

A $4-million federal grant to CALSTART and $2 million in matching state funds, the first grants of their kind, were provided under legislation aimed at jump-starting a high-tech industry that proponents say will revitalize the state’s troubled economy while improving its environment.

The money gives the public-private partnership the $20 million it wanted to cover expenses for two years. The balance comes from contributions by the more than 40 public and private agencies that make up CALSTART, including Hughes Aircraft, IBM, Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison.

The nonprofit consortium, which set up shop in June in a 155,000-square-foot facility donated by the Lockheed Corp., acts mostly as a research and design center to help other companies, including automobile manufacturers, produce electric vehicles and components.

The need for clean-air vehicles is acute in California, which has imposed strict air-quality regulations requiring car companies operating in the state to produce 40,000 electric cars for California sale each year beginning in 1998, increasing to 200,000 cars by the year 2003.

The funding will support the development of three basic CALSTART programs:

* Construction of a showcase electric car scheduled to be displayed at the Los Angeles Auto Show in January, 1993.

* Laying the groundwork for a statewide electric vehicle servicing infrastructure that by 1994 will including charging stations, battery recycling facilities and amendment of building codes to allow for installation of in-home recharging facilities.

* Design of a “next generation” electric bus with longer range and greater reliability.

At a news conference attended by Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.) and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, CALSTART was praised for establishing what they said will become the foundation of a multimillion-dollar industry that could generate more than 55,000 new jobs in the state by the year 2000.

“This is the epitome of a public-private partnership coming together in common interest and pitching in to see that the job gets done,” said Seymour, who said he worked with Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) to lobby federal transportation officials for the CALSTART grant.

CALSTART President Lon Bell said he believes the consortium will be instrumental in creating jobs for the thousands of workers laid off from Southern California’s aerospace and defense firms.

The federal grant was one of only three awarded by the Federal Transportation Administration under a program established by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 to foster electric car production. A total of 24 groups and businesses throughout the country applied for the grants. The other two winners were a Maryland consortium that was awarded $4 million and a New York group that received $2.3 million.

“This program will help our nation develop new ways to meet current and future air-quality and energy goals,” Secretary of Transportation Andrew H. Card said in a prepared statement.

The state matching funds were provided under legislation authored in June by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) and state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles). The funds were provided by the state Department of Commerce, the state Department of Transportation and drawn from penalties charged to oil companies for overcharging consumers for gasoline during the 1970s.

Last week, CALSTART was awarded a $1.8-million contract by the state Employment Training Panel to operate a 13-month training program for aerospace and defense workers in electric vehicle production and sales. The program is intended to give those workers the skills to help them shift their industries into the production of electric vehicle components.

“Here in Southern California we have an abundance of talent that it takes to solve both our environmental and economic problems,” said Mary Nichols, senior staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and a CALSTART board member.

Among the electric car vehicle components that are being developed by CALSTART members are a lightweight aluminum body, a low-energy cooling and heating system, and a battery monitoring system that would show drivers how much farther a car could run without a recharge.

But the most radically advanced design is for an on-board navigation system that would allow the driver to speak the name of a destination into a microphone and have a computer plot the best route. When not in use as a navigation aid, the unit would act as a conventional compact disc player.