Last month I blogged about the joint venture announced between ECOtality (OTC:ETLY) and Shenzhen Goch Investment Ltd. to develop charging stations for electric cars. At the time, the deal hinted at a big chance for the company to enter the Chinese market. This week, however, a huge opportunity emerged on the other side of the Pacific when the US government announced the company will get nearly $100 million in federal stimulus funds to install 13,000 charging stations across America. In a August 6 report by WDEF News the funding was described by company president, Jonathan Reed, as “by far the biggest electric vehicle initiative in the history of the world."

The funding marks the next stage in the development of a company which only recently marked its ten-year anniversary after being founded in 1999 as a hydrogen fuel cell developer. The company has ambitions in China, where they hope to supply electrical charging infrastructure to support government plans to provide electrically-powered transport for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.

If it can successfully deliver the charging stations in America it will be a key testing ground for its China plans. From the looks of it, plans to install stations in the US are developing fast as the aforementioned WDEF News report said that ‘work begins in two-weeks to start mapping out the most feasible locations for public charging stations’. Given that electric charging stations are relatively untried on a mass scale, by testing how these stations work and how best to place them to service drivers needs, the new initiative will provide an important learning experience for the company which can help it achieve its China ambitions. Given the speed that governments on both sides of the Pacific are moving at to support electrically powered transport, you can soon expect ECOtality to use experience gained in the US to make its presence known in China.