Obama Visit Juices Up SoCal Electric Vehicle Plant

At the center, located in a gritty industrial neighborhood sandwiched by auto repair shops and rattled by passing freight trains, more than a dozen employees test, maintain and repair vehicles, including those in Edison's fleet.

"We're not just driving 'em around the track," Craver said. "We've got our own meter readers using electric vehicles, have been for years. We've got utility vehicles, the bucket trucks and that type of thing."

During his visit, Obama made the case for government investment of billions of dollars to develop fuel-efficient cars and provide an electric grid to support them. He called for putting 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles on America's roads by 2015.

"It's certainly doable," Craver said of that figure.

"Whether you capture everybody's enthusiasm and get the adoption, of course, is part of what all of this is about," he said of Obama's visit. "To get people to understand what the benefits are and how it could really be good for the system and good for the individual."