India’s electric car model Reva will now be manufactured in Central New York. Reva, the Indian maker of electric cars, announced that it planned to open an assembly plant in Upstate New York to build a three-door plug-in hatchback called the NXR, in partnership with a local company. The decision was welcomed by the New York officials as recognition of the state’s emerging battery-technology cluster and manufacturing skill. “I believe the competition was between New York State and Michigan, and we won,” Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat, of New York, said in a telephone interview last week.

Reva Nxr model will be manufactured by Bannon Automotive which has executed a memorandum of understanding with the State of New York finalising the site selection process. More than a dozen locations were selected across the US but finally Onondaga County emerged as the most popular site for manufacturing the electric cars.

Reva has also granted exclusive rights to Bannon Automotive for U.S. development and production of its electric cars. Now Bannon has to finalise its financing commitments which it intends to do by the end of 2009.

“We are proud that we will produce these cars for the North American market in the United States. Syracuse’s proximity to half the population of the U.S. allows us easily to reach key markets for new electric vehicles that extend well beyond the northeast,” said Paul Wimer, CEO, Bannon Automotive, LLC. “Central New York’s position as a national leader in green technology, and the support we received from elected officials and economic development agencies were major factors in our decision.”