The wave of the automotive future will be designed, made and maintained in Indiana.

Wednesday President Obama announced millions of dollars in grant money for Indiana companies and universities, including Notre Dame. In fact Indiana is the second largest recipient of funding for fuel efficient vehicles using hybrid and electric vehicle technology.

“See, I'm committed to a strategy that ensures America leads in the design and the deployment of the next generation of clean-energy vehicles. This is not just an investment to produce vehicles today; this is an investment in our capacity to develop new technologies tomorrow. This is about creating the infrastructure of innovation,” President Obama explained before making the grant announcement on Wednesday.

Purdue is the lead on the “Electric Vehicle Training” grant around Indiana.

450 thousand dollars of the 6.1 million dollars in grant money will go to Notre Dame's School of Engineering.

It ultimately means engineering students at Notre Dame will soon take classes on electric cars and get jobs making them.

“The students themselves these days are excited about this. Besides they know vehicle electrification and battery power vehicles are the wave of the future,” explains Dr. Paul McGinn with Notre Dame’s School of Engineering.

For years Notre Dame has been offering courses and competing in electric cars. Now with this grant money they will expand on that technology. Notre Dame will team up with IU, Purdue, and Ivy Tech to train students to build battery operated vehicles.

McGinn says, “What the Obama administration is trying to do is kick start the production and manufacture of electrified vehicles and provide the workforce to do that.”

Purdue estimates that with this grant money at least 300 students will graduate each year with a degree in electric vehicle technology or a certificate.

Many of those students can then work for the companies around the state that also received grant money to build these batteries.