She said the proposal originated out of discussions the two mayors had in the past year about clean energy.

"This is just really, really exciting," she said. "We can jump-start the electric vehicle technology in the two cities."

       Almost $400 million in federal stimulus money is earmarked for transportation electrification. The Minnesota proposal would combine demonstration and evaluation of electric cars and vans with setting up the electrical system necessary to support those vehicles. It is unclear how many projects across the nation will be awarded funding.

       Most of the 66 Ford vehicles requested in the proposal would be all-electric Transit Connect Vans, small vans that run on lithium ion batteries and can go up to 70 miles per hour and have a range of about 100 miles on a single charge. The others would be Ford Escape plug-in hybrids.

       Minneapolis, St. Paul and Hennepin County officials said they would use the vehicles for such things as transportation for city inspections staff, park patrols, county signal maintenance and mail delivery. Each participating government body is required to commit to investing $20,000 in infrastructure per vehicle. The cars and vans, which would be specially modified for the project, are worth several times that amount, said Greg Palmer, the Xcel manager who is working on the project.

       Hennepin County would install 20 charging stations in parking ramps for each of the six vehicles it expects to receive, said Maurice Gieske, county director for public works management support. Three solar-powered "marquee" charging sites would be placed in highly public locations such as the Twins ballpark to promote the project. When those stations were not being used for charging cars, they'd be feeding electricity back into the grid, Gieske said.

       Participants would report back to Xcel and Ford on how well the vehicles and charging system worked.

Rybak said Minneapolis would get 18 vehicles and would build 100 charging spots in parking ramps, 20 on the street, plus a couple of high-visibility stations.