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Electric vehicle-related companies can look to benefit from $1.2 million awarded to Drive Oregon, a nonprofit seeking to push commercialization of electric vehicles in the clean tech, advanced manufacturing and software industries. The Oregon Innovation Council announced the funding on Thursday, and it will become available by the end of this year.

Drive Oregon originally sought $2.4 million, according to James Mast, the organization’s operations director, so it is working to redevelop its strategic plan for allocating the funds.

The nonprofit formed last fall and will use part of the funds to get the organization up and running, Mast said. 鈥淭his whole organization is about getting businesses aligned and thinking about the best strategy to capitalize on funding that’s being deployed at the federal level,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ne of the really big pieces is to capture those funds and bring them to Oregon companies.鈥�

The federal government’s goal is to have a million plug-in vehicles on the road in the next four years. And although pouring funds into Drive Oregon and similar organizations across the country will encourage some progress in the industry, the infrastructure to satisfy consumers’ demands may not be in place by 2015.

released in May revealed that the majority of consumers would consider buying a plug-in electric vehicle for their next car purchase, but they are not ready to give up the convenience and speed of having gas stations everywhere.

Some of the preferences that were exposed, including that 67 percent of respondents are not willing to have charging stations limit when they can fuel, point to a wide gap between planned infrastructure and market expectations.

Drive Oregon will focus on connecting the electric vehicle industry to the state’s university system and other businesses in its effort to expand markets for local companies and help grow the emerging industry.